New Front in The War on Women - Texas is Coming For The Abortion Pill

Women aren't safe anywhere in the country after the Texas Attorney General launches a lawsuit against a New York doctor Proving abortion pills

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

The new front in the Republican war on women has just been opened up.

And this new war now proves that anti abortion forces in Republican controlled states were never going to be satisfied in just shutting down women’s rights in their own states.

They want to have power over us all.

This isn’t about their own states right to do what their citizens wanted within their own state borders. As if a majority of the women in Red states really wanted to give up control of their own bodies.

No, extreme anti abortion activists will never be satisfied until every fertilized egg in the country has full rights equal to the rights of the pregnant woman carrying it. Even if the pregnancy itself threatens its mother’s own life .

The new battlefront is being led by right wing extremist Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He is coming with guns blazing after a New York doctor who prescribed and sent abortion pills to a 20 year -old Texas woman who requested and then used them.

He’s suing the doctor for $100,000 in a Texas court for enabling an abortion in Texas, even though Dr Carpenter practices medicine in NY, and what she’s doing - providing abortion pills to women in all 50 states is legal in NY.

Jeez - it seems Paxton isn’t satisfied with terrifying Texas OBGYNs who violate his own state’s extreme abortion ban. They face 99 years in prison, plus losing their medical licenses if they provide a woman in Texas with an abortion unless she is at death’s door or at risk of losing a major bodily function.

Texas has an abortion ban from the moment of fertilization.

Now, he’s filed this lawsuit against a New York doctor Margaret Carpenter who is also the co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine ( ACT).

Strategically, it would make sense that he’s taken aim at Carpenter because her organization has helped numerous women in abortion ban states, including Texas, make their own decisions about whether they can continue a pregnancy.

Carpenter and her partners founded ACT after the Supreme Court overruled Roe V Wade, exactly because 20 Republican - led states moved with hyper speed to pass dangerous abortion bans, many with no exceptions for rape, incest or the actual health of mothers.

ACT organized doctors who were willing to provide abortion pills through telemedicine to women trapped in these states as well as to women in all 50 states.

Their work has literally been a lifesaver for women.

But saving women’s lives hasn’t been a priority for Texas’s Republican lawmakers.

They haven’t responded with any changes to their extreme abortion ban legislation or punishments since it’s been publicly reported that three young healthy women have been documented to have died in Texas while undergoing miscarriages.

Deaths of women from miscarriages during much -wanted pregnancies have seemingly been an unintended consequence of Texas OBGYNs afraid to go to jail for life if they treat a serious miscarriage with a D&C procedure, which could be misconstrued as an abortion.

Instead of remedying future tragedies like those, Texas’s Republican lawmakers seem to be obsessing that they haven’t been able to fully control the bodies of the 6.4 million women of reproductive age in the state .

They want pregnant women to be as trapped as possible in Texas and to be subjected to “forced births.”

So Paxton is reaching his Texas tentacles all the way into the state of New York, where abortions are legal, to try to drag Dr Carpenter into his state court.

This seems designed to force Carpenter and all the other physicians providing abortion pills through telemedicine to abandon their mission of helping pregnant women.

It also appears to be part of a bigger anti abortion strategy to challenge New York’s “shield law” which specifically protects New York doctors from being attacked for providing abortion pills to patients in other states, according to Chris Geidner, a lawyer who writes the Law Dork column on Substack.

NY Governor Kathy Hochul signed the shield law in 2023 to protect the state’s abortion providers specifically against aggressive anti abortion AGs like Paxton warning them:

"If you're in another state law enforcement you want to prosecute, penalize, sue one of our health care providers who prescribed abortion medication, we're not going to help you. We're not going to cooperate with out-of-state investigations. We're not going to extradite, we're not going to issue subpoenas. You can continue hell-bent down your path on continuing this radical behavior. But we'll be just as hell-bent on stopping you."

Hochul knew that anti abortion Red state Attorney Generals would salivate about attacking New York abortion providers when she signed the shield law to protect them.

"They want to strip them of their medical licenses, sue them, throw them in jail, convict them of murder," she said before signing the legislation. "This is New York. We don't respond well to threats. ... They can't stop New York, and that's how we're fighting back."

Strong words.

And since Paxton filed his lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James has stepped up and fired back : “If the Attorney General of Texas were actually ‘pro-life,’ he would do anything possible to save the life of a mother faced with a dire medical emergency.”

“ Instead, he is again taking dangerous, malicious, and inhumane action that would jeopardize the lives of so many. I am sickened by his disregard for the safety of Americans, but make no mistake: I will fight back and take action to protect access to this critical care.”

So Hochul and James appear poised to join the fight on behalf of Dr Carpenter.

That’s great news but whether you are in New York or any of the other Blue states with similar shield laws for medical providers, I’m warning you - do not feel safe.

This could just be Paxton’s opening shot - his first lawsuit against a doctor from a Blue state. He could launch many more.

FYI - it’s interesting that Paxton chose to file this lawsuit after the Nov 5th election, when it could potentially have influenced the way some voters made their presidential choice.

Plus, there are plenty of other extreme anti abortion Attorney Generals in other states who could be licking their chops and getting ready to file their own suits.

Paxton could very well be aiming to fight this battle lawsuit against Dr. Carpenter all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court in an epic battle of Texas v New York law.

And with this Supreme Court, who knows how that will come out.

So no woman in America , no matter where she lives, can actually breathe easy.

But in the meantime The Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine has responded defiantly to Ken Paxton’s lawsuit in a statement they sent me :

“Ken Paxton is prioritizing his anti-abortion agenda over the health and well-being of women by attempting to shut down telemedicine abortion nationwide. By threatening access to safe and effective reproductive health care, he is putting women directly in harm’s way.

Let us be clear: the FDA-approved medicine in the two step protocol for a medication abortion has been proven safe and effective globally for decades. It is an essential part of women’s healthcare.

Since Roe v Wade was overturned, we have seen attempts to further impede and erode a person’s right to make decisions about their own bodies. Shield laws are essential in safeguarding and enabling abortion care regardless of a patient’s zip code or ability to pay. They are fundamental to ensuring everyone can access reproductive health care as a human right.”

You have to be aware today that whether it’s Ken Paxton, Donald Trump and JD Vance or RFK Jr., there are plenty of Republican law makers just itching to end abortion access nationally.

It is about control. Controlling you. And Ken Paxton taking on New York’s abortion shield law is the new war front. Pay attention.