FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16th, 2024
Contact: Ashley Vaughan
[email protected]
NC VALUES RESPONDS TO TEXAS LAWSUIT AGAINST NY DOCTOR WHO PRESCRIBED ABORTION PILLS TO TEXAS RESIDENT
Austin, TX – Texas is suing NY-based doctor Margaret Daly Carpenter for violating the state’s protections against harmful abortion pills by prescribing them to a Texas resident through telemedicine.
The lawsuit is the first known legal challenge to so-called “shield laws” which protect doctors in pro-abortion states who send abortion pills to patients in pro-life states.
According to the lawsuit, the Texas patient was allegedly prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol to induce an abortion and was later taken to the hospital to be treated for severe bleeding.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement on Friday, “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.”
NC Values Coalition Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald applauded the news, saying:
“Attorney General Paxton is exactly right: out-of-state abortionists must not be allowed to circumvent state law by prescribing and sending abortion pills in the mail. It is a crime to ship these drugs directly to pregnant women in North Carolina, but the pills are still pouring into our state by mail. North Carolina law needs to be strengthened in order to hold people responsible who are sending illegal and dangerous abortion pills to vulnerable North Carolina women.”
Earlier this year The Guardian reported that North Carolina has seen an average of almost 2,000 medication abortions per month through shield laws.
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