Republicans Serious About Protecting Life Should Follow Texas In Prosecuting Abortion Pill Outlaws
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a New York doctor this week after she prescribed a Lone Star State woman an abortion pill that not only killed her unborn child but sent her to the hospital with life-threatening complications.
In the petition filed on Friday, Paxton alleged that Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine Founder and Co-Medical Director Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter violated the Texas Health and Safety Code when she prescribed a 20-year-old pregnant woman in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex abortion drugs by mail after a virtual appointment in May 2024.
Abortion in Texas is illegal except when the mother is at risk of losing her life or suffering “substantial impairment of a major bodily function,” qualifications that the lawsuit states the pregnant woman did not meet.
It was only with Carpenter, who was no doubt emboldened by the Biden administration’s radical expansion of abortion pill dispensing via mail order and pharmacy sale, that the nine-week pregnant woman was able to obtain the mifepristone and misoprostol pills without alerting the baby’s father. The father learned about the pregnancy and Carpenter’s role in ending it when the woman went to the hospital in July 2024 for hemorrhaging caused by the abortion drug.
“Carpenter is not a licensed Texas physician, nor is she authorized to practice telemedicine in the State of Texas,” the lawsuit notes. Yet the petition states that she “knowingly treats patients in Texas.”
Since Carpenter has a lengthy resume working with radical pro-abortion groups such as Aid Access and Hey Jane, both of which boast of sending abortion pills to women in states where they are outlawed, Paxton believes she will harm babies and women in his state again unless stopped by legal force.
“Unless Carpenter is restrained by this Court, with relief that is enforceable by a contempt order, Carpenter will continue to defiantly violate Texas Law,” the request for relief notes, asking the court to fine the New York doctor $100,000 for each violation of Lone Star State law.
Corporate media and Democrats attempt to blame pro-life laws like Texas’ for the suffering and even death of women who ingested abortion pills. As Paxton’s petition makes clear, however, it’s conduct like “Carpenter’s knowing and continuing violations of Texas law” that “places women and unborn children in Texas at risk.”
“In this case, an out-of-state doctor violated the law and caused serious harm to this patient. This doctor prescribed abortion-inducing drugs — unauthorized, over telemedicine — causing her patient to end up in the hospital with serious complications,” Paxton said in a statement. “In Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents.”
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, abortion activists have done their best to circumvent dozens of pro-life laws aimed at protecting women and children from harm. They “stockpile” abortion pills to send to women in states where the drug is banned and band with Democrats to go after pregnancy centers that offer abortion pill reversals.
Even President-Elect Donald Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance have both signaled a softness towards making harmful abortion pills widely available regardless of pro-life prohibitions. Republicans who are serious about protecting babies and women should instead follow Texas’ lead in prosecuting the people helping harm those “treasured” lives.
The mifepristone and misoprostol combination Carpenter sent to the Texas woman is responsible for more than half of the nation’s abortions despite causing side effects such as hemorrhage, “fast, weak pulse,” “shortness of breath,” diarrhea, dizziness, headache, vomiting, “pain” across the back, arms, neck, and abdomen. In some cases, the abortion pills are fatal.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration rushed to approve the pill more than two decades ago under an accelerated drug approval authority usually reserved for emergencies. Even it, however, admits that nearly 1 in 25 women who ingest the drug will end up in the emergency room or hospitalized.
More than a dozen states have taken large swaths of data indicating the abortion pill is dangerous to heart by outlawing the drug. The next step in their fights to shield women and babies from the consequences of the radical abortion activism threatening even the reddest of areas comes with enforcing those laws, just as Texas is doing.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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