A Texas judge ordered a New York doctor to be fined $100,000 after she prescribed abortion pills to a Texas woman in a ruling that could challenge the Democratic state’s shield law.
In December, the state of Texas accused Dr. Maggie Carpenter, a family medicine doctor who practices in New York, of violating Texas law by providing abortion-inducing drugs to Texans via telehealth. The southern state bans abortion in almost all cases and also bans abortion pills from being prescribed through telemedicine.
Judge Bryan Gantt ruled Thursday that Carpenter must pay the $100,000 in penalties — with an interest rate of 7.5 percent until the amount is paid — as well as attorney’s fees. The judge also ordered a permanent injunction preventing Carpenter from prescribing abortion drugs to Texas residents and from practicing in Texas without a license to do so in the state.
He noted that she was “properly served” but didn’t respond to the filings or appear in court.
The Texas lawsuit alleges Carpenter prescribed the two-pill medication abortion regimen to a 20-year-old resident of Collin County last May, even though she didn’t have “any life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from the pregnancy that placed her at risk of death or any serious risk of substantial impairment.”
Thursday’s ruling tests New York’s telemedicine shield laws. Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation in 2023 protecting New York doctors who provide telehealth services to patients in states where abortion is banned from litigation.
Earlier this month, Hochul took another step to protect reproductive health and doctors in her home state by signing a measure allowing providers to put the name of their practice rather than their real names on abortion pill prescriptions.
Carpenter is also one of the founders of Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which was formed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The group’s co-founder and executive director Julie Kay told the Associated Press that the ruling has no bearing on shield laws. She added: “Patients can access medication abortion from licensed providers no matter where they live.”
The Independent has reached out to the coalition for comment.
Several other states have enacted similar shield laws: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Washington. An estimated 10,000 abortion pills have been sent to restricted states each month since these laws went into effect.
The ruling came hours after Hochul refused to extradite Carpenter to Louisiana, where a grand jury last month indicted her on criminal abortion charges after she provided a Louisiana resident with abortion pills in what appears to be the first case of its kind.
“I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana,” Hochul said at a press conference Thursday. “Not now, not ever.”
