Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Breaks A Fragile Abortion Truce By Suing N.Y. Doctor Over Abortion Pill, Testing The Power Of ‘Shield Laws’

Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against a doctor in New York for mailing abortion pills to Texas.

The doctor, Margaret Daly Carpenter, is a part of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT), which represents doctors who mail abortion medicine to states where abortion is banned.

ACT calls its clients “shield providers” because they rely on shield laws in 23 states and the District of Columbia to protect providers and defendants from out-of-state legal actions. Texas is the first to challenge these shield laws.

Shield laws were created after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which were drafted by lawyers in support of abortion rights to prevent criminal and civil consequences for residents of their states who sought to provide help from out of state.

The Shield network makes medication available to patients who live in remote areas or lack resources to travel out of state. The network also makes pills available quicker than doctors based offshore.

Shield doctors can send thousands of pills to states where abortion is a crime, but there has been no challenge to the laws until this recent case.

Texas has accused Carpenter of practicing medicine without a license and violating a state law that limits the availability of abortion pills. The civil penalties start at $100,000 under the law.

The court will have to evaluate which state’s law applies as the physician was in one state and the patient and abortion were in Texas.

The matter could be complicated, as Carpenter could sue Texas under New York’s shield law, claiming the suit unlawfully interferes with her protected rights.

The Supreme Court will have to decide the complex legal questions raised by this case.