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TX Judge Fines NY Doctor $100K for Prescribing an Abortion Pill - This Could Be a Fracture Point [1]

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Date: 2025-02-13

Every state is supposed to give “full faith and credit” to every other state; it says so in the Constitution. That means each state respects the laws and the legal judgments of all the other states. Texas, Louisiana, and New York are about to put that to the test.

Last December, TX AG and all-around asshole Ken Paxton filed suit in a Texas state court against Dr. Margaret Carpenter for sending an unnamed Texas women pills to induce an abortion. Why Texas Is Suing an Abortion Provider From New York. According to the New Yorker article,

The state seems poised to defend Carpenter from Texas. “As other states move to attack those who provide or obtain abortion care, New York is proud to be a safe haven for abortion access,” New York attorney general Letitia James said in a statement. “We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats.”

That protection is now being put to the test. Texas Judge Fines New York Doctor and Orders Her to Stop Sending Abortion Pills to Texas:

In a case that could have major implications for abortion access in the United States, a Texas judge on Thursday ordered a New York doctor to stop prescribing and sending abortion pills to patients in Texas and to pay a penalty of more than $100,000 for providing the medication to one woman. The case is widely expected to reach the Supreme Court and become a pivotal test in the escalating battle between states that ban abortion and states that support abortion rights. It essentially pits Texas, which has a near-total abortion ban, against New York, which has a “telemedicine abortion shield law” intended to protect abortion providers who send medications to patients in other states.

The decision was reached after a 40-minute in which Dr. Carpenter and her lawyers did not appear. Nor, apparently, have they responded in any way to the suit, so the state moved for and got a default judgment. Their lack of response — refusal to respond is a more accurate description — was based on their understanding that the New York shield law prohibits cooperating with other states: the shield law (PDF)

protects state and local government employees and agencies from cooperating with out-of-state investigations, including disclosing information connected to “legally protected health activities.

Also today, the governor of Louisiana formally requested NY to extradite Dr. Carpenter to face a criminal charge filed last week in that state for providing abortion medication. New York state did immediately respond to this one: Abortion Provider Won’t Be Extradited to Louisiana, N.Y. Governor Says.

Louisiana officials seeking to prosecute a New York doctor who sent abortion medication to a resident of that state were thrown a roadblock on Thursday, when New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, said she would block extradition attempts. . . . “I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana — not now, not ever,” Ms. Hochul said at a news conference on Thursday.

As noted in an NYT article when the shield law was passed,

Lawyers on each side of the issue say that state shield laws undermine basic premises of interstate cooperation. Rather than recognizing one state’s arrest warrant or court order, another state effectively throws a wrench into the enforcement of that state’s laws.

“Interstate cooperation” has been on life support for a long time now, given the Red / Blue state split and the determination of the rulers of the red states to tell citizens of blue states how to live our lives — while mooching off our money. This may be the case that brings push to shove.

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