A Texas judge has ordered a New York doctor to immediately stop prescribing and mailing abortion pills to patients in Texas, setting up a challenge to state “shield laws” that could reach the US supreme court.
In his order Thursday, Judge Bryan Gantt of Collin county district court ordered Dr Margaret Daley Carpenter of New Paltz, who uses telemedicine to see patients across the country, to cease her work and pay a penalty of more than $100,000. The lawsuit was filed by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, a close ally of Donald Trump, in December.
The case, which challenges the strength of “shield laws” established to protect physicians offering abortion care, is widely believed to be headed for the supreme court. Such laws emerged after the court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 – and signify a growing divide among states since then.
On Thursday, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, said the state would not cooperate with an extradition request for Carpenter, filed by Louisiana officials in a separate case.
The Texas lawsuit alleges that Carpenter provided a 20-year-old woman with the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol. After the woman sought follow-up care at her local emergency room, the “biological father of her unborn child” filed a complaint with the attorney general, according to court records. The anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life has encouraged men to report instances when they believe their partners may have received such abortion care, and file wrongful death lawsuits against the physicians and friends who provided assistance.
A separate Louisiana lawsuit, the first criminal indictment of its kind, accuses Carpenter of sending the same pills to a pregnant teenager in that state.
“I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana – not now, not ever,” Hochul said on Thursday.
Carpenter has not commented directly on either case, but an organization she leads, called the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, released a statement on Thursday, saying: “Today’s extradition order from a prosecutor with an anti-abortion agenda is the latest escalation in Louisiana’s ongoing state-sponsored effort to prosecute safe and effective healthcare.”
It added: “Ongoing attempts by anti-abortion state officials to restrict access to abortion care are inconsistent with New York state law.”
Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, who signed the warrant for Carpenter to appear in court there, posted about the case on social media on Thursday: “There is only one right answer in this situation: the doctor must face extradition to Louisiana where justice will be served.”
Shield laws
Over the last five months of 2023, medical providers shipped abortion pills to more than 40,000 people living in states that forbid abortions via “shield laws”.
Since 2022, 23 states and Washington DC have enacted such laws to protect providers offering reproductive healthcare, according to the University of California, Los Angeles. The laws represent a departure from previous interstate legal agreements.
The laws vary in scope state-to-state, with New York’s declaring that state and local entities may not cooperate with, or provide information or use resources in furtherance of, an out-of-state investigation of any “legally protected reproductive health activity”. It also prohibits the state’s governor from recognizing any extradition requests.
As a result of that wording, Carpenter and her attorneys did not respond to the Texas lawsuit or appear in court on Wednesday for a hearing before the judge, according to the New York Times.
In a previous statement, Carpenter’s organization said: “Shield laws are essential in safeguarding and enabling abortion care regardless of a patient’s ZIP code or ability to pay.”
At a press conference regarding Louisiana’s extradition order on Thursday, Hochul told reporters: “We have put in place strict shield laws that anticipate this very situation.”
Texas was the first state to initiate such legal action challenging shield laws, and the Louisiana case against Carpenter is the first such criminal indictment.
Such laws could end up before the supreme court if Texas files a petition in New York state court to collect the financial penalty it ordered Carpenter to pay. Alongside a $100,000 fine and about $13,000 in attorneys’ fees and court costs, the Texas judge also ordered Carpenter to immediately cease prescribing and mailing abortion pills. Violating an injunction can result in a contempt order that may carry additional financial penalties.
• The last paragraph of this article was amended on 14 February 2025. The judge is from Texas and not New York, as an earlier version said.
