Texas is Coming for New York Abortion Providers

12.13.24

Click to skip ahead: In Attacks on Providers, Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing a New York abortion provider. In the States, news from South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and more. In the Nation, the truth behind the headlines claiming that Trump will protect abortion medication. Listen Up has a podcast from two OBGYNs on abortion rights. In Jessica’s Petty Corner, a short rant about a lab coat. Finally, Keep An Eye On anti-abortion tactics being exported to the UK.

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Attacks on Providers

Well, we figured this was coming. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing a New York abortion provider for “unlawfully providing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents in direct violation of state law.”

As you know, telehealth abortion medication has been a saving grace for patients in states with bans, who are getting pills from doctors in shield states like New York. Conservatives are furious that women have been able to get around their bans, and AGs like Paxton are eager to go after the providers and abortion funds who help them. Like I’ve long said, they’re targeting the helpers.

In this case, Paxton is suing Dr. Margaret (Maggie) Carpenter, founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT) and a provider with Aid Access. He’s seeking civil penalties of “no less than $100,000 for each violation of the law.”

Paxton claims that Carpenter provided abortion medication to a Texas resident “that ended the life of an unborn child and resulted in serious complications for the mother, who then required medical intervention.”

We’ll come back to the claim of “serious complications” momentarily, but first let’s take a look at the legal brief and see what happened. The suit says that a 20 year-old woman got abortion medication from New York and later asked her boyfriend—who didn’t know about the pregnancy—to take her to the hospital for bleeding. (Please note that throughout the brief Paxton refers to this young woman as “the mother,” rather than as a patient, woman, or anything else. Gross.)

At the hospital, doctors told the boyfriend that the woman had lost a nine week pregnancy. From the brief:

“The biological father of the unborn child, upon learning this information, concluded that the biological mother of the unborn child had intentionally withheld information from him regarding her pregnancy, and he further suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion of the unborn child. The biological father, upon returning to the residence in Collin County, discovered the two above-referenced medications from Carpenter.”

In other words: when confronted with information about his girlfriend losing a pregnancy, this man was pissed that she hadn’t told him and immediately suspected that she had an abortion. Then he goes back to snoop at her house and finds the medication. Presumably, he then went to some shitty anti-abortion group or lawyer who took the case to Paxton. Remember, I’ve been warning that Texas Right to Life and folks like Jonathan Mitchell have been scouring the state for a man aggrieved over a girlfriend or ex-wife’s abortion.

As is often the case, these are the absolute worst kind of men: controllers and abusers who want to punish women for doing something they didn’t like. There may be no worse kind of abuser than Paxton himself, who claims in his statement to “treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies,” yet has threatened hospitals out of providing care to women with nonviable pregnancies.

Abortion, Every Day’s sources in Texas say that they believe this suit is a precursor for more to come—and possibly even state RICO charges. (Laws meant to go after organized crime.)

Now let’s go back to the claim that this woman suffered serious harm. Paxton doesn’t include a single bit of evidence that the patient was harmed—just that she was bleeding enough that she wanted to go to the hospital. As you know, it isn’t uncommon for someone to be surprised by the amount of bleeding they have during an abortion and deciding to go to the hospital just to be safe.

Unless there is some other medical issue that’s not reported in the brief (which seems unlikely to me), let’s be clear: visiting an ER is not an abortion ‘complication’, nor does it constitute medical intervention. But as I’ve reported before, Republicans—especially those in Texas—have been trying to change the definition of abortion complications.

I’ll have more for you on this case in the coming days, but in the meantime I’m hoping that Maggie is doing well and is surrounded by support. AED community member and fellow Aid Access provider Linda Prine reminds us that the care Maggie has been giving is legally protected, and that Texas has no jurisdiction over New York. New York Attorney General Letitia James made as much clear in a statement today, saying, “We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats.”

Prine’s most important reminder, though? “Abortion is a human right.”

In the States

I’m still pissed off about the lack of media coverage for the South Carolina bill that would make abortion punishable by the death penalty. As I wrote earlier this week, this should be front page news; and the silence around the issue is exactly what Republicans are counting on. They want their extremism to be normalized.

That said, you can always count on Alanna Vagianos at HuffPost. She points out that when state Rep. Rob Harris introduced the bill last year, he claimed that the legislation “does not single out women, it prohibits everyone from committing murder.” (Remember, he’s using the language of “equal protection,” which Republicans think will make charging women with murder sound less horrifying.)

As I wrote earlier this week, this bill comes at the same time that Idaho Republicans are fighting in federal court for the right to deny women life-saving abortions, and as politicians are shuttering or tampering with maternal mortality committees.

In more they-don’t-care-if-we-die news, don’t forget that Republicans in Oklahoma are trying to make the state’s strict abortion ban even worse. They want to change the language of the legislation that allows abortion in cases of a “medical emergency” to instead “only preserve the pregnant woman’s life.”

The kicker is this quote from bill sponsor state Rep. Jim Olsen, when presented with the fact that legislation like this makes doctors want to leave Oklahoma: “To be very frank, we don't need doctors that are just intending to kill babies for the convenience of somebody else.” The convenience of somebody else. We’re at the place in this country where women who want to live are just acting out of ‘convenience.’ (This reminds me of a similarly chilling quote from a Fifth Circuit judge.)

Finally, I told you on Wednesday about a new Republican bill in Tennessee that would mandate a person who “mails or delivers” abortion medication into the state be civilly liable for $5 million. Once again, this is about targeting the helpers—the bill is meant to go after blue state providers and abortion funds.

In response to Rep. Gino Bulso’s bill, Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn filed the Reproductive Freedom Act, which guarantees that every person in Tennessee “has a fundamental right to make decisions about the person's reproductive health care,” including the right to abortion and contraception.

Obviously, given the makeup of the Tennessee legislature, this is a symbolic bill. But that’s just fine. Rep. Behn says that the “timing was intentional to draw a contrast to the dystopian future and draconian overreach of Bulso’s bill.”

Quick hits:

• The Michigan Senate voted this week to expand insurance coverage for over-the-counter contraception;

• An anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center in New Jersey failed to block the state Attorney General’s request for its donor records;

• And an Ohio Republican is pushing a bill to claim fetuses as dependents on their taxes—a move more about establishing fetal personhood than helping families.

In the Nation

One of the big headlines today is that Donald Trump supposedly said that he wouldn’t restrict abortion medication. Axios’ headline says “Trump commits to protecting abortion pill access,” while the Washington Examiner writes that “Trump pledges not to ban abortion pills.” You get the gist. But let’s look at what Trump actually said.

When asked in an interview with TIME magazine whether the FDA would restrict access to abortion medication, Trump first says, “we’re going to take a look at all of that.” When the reporter pushed for clarity, here’s what he said next:

“I think it would be highly unlikely. I can't imagine, but with, you know, we're looking at everything, but highly unlikely. I guess I could say probably as close to ruling it out as possible, but I don't want to. I don't want to do anything now. I want to do it at some point.”

So, as was the case in his interview with “Meet the Press” this weekend, Trump avoids promising anything. It’s only when the reporter asks a final time, “Are you committed to making sure that the FDA does not strip their ability to access abortion pills?,” that Trump answers “That would be my commitment.”

Now, all of this is premised on the idea that Trump tells the truth—which is hilariously dubious. But let’s say that despite all the equivocating, that he’s being truthful and that the FDA is not going to “strip [women’s'] ability to access abortion pills.” What does that mean, precisely? That they won’t repeal access entirely?

Right now anti-abortion activists want the FDA to restore pre-2016 rules on mifepristone, which would rollback how far into pregnancy the pills can be used, limit who can prescribe the medication, and restore requirements for in-person visits. My guess is that Trump would have zero problem with that, because he could claim that he’s not erasing access—just making sure the pills are being used “safely.”

And that’s to say nothing of the Comstock Act! Promising that the FDA won’t repeal access to abortion medication doesn’t mean that a Trump DOJ wouldn’t ban the shipping of abortion medication using the zombie law.

All of which is to say: this interview doesn’t mean shit to me, and I wish mainstream outlets would stop taking the bait. Because all this does is give Trump the pro-choice credibility he wants while ignoring all of the various ways that his administration will devastate access to abortion medication—while claiming not to restrict the pills at all!

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For more on Republicans’ attacks on abortion medication, read about their latest lawsuit below:

The GOP's Attack on Abortion Pills is Here

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The truth is that Trump doesn’t really care about abortion, he cares about winning. That TIME piece, for example, lays out how Trump was about to endorse a 16-week national ban during the campaign; it was only when advisors pointed out that it would be unpopular that he pivoted to his “up to the states” talking point.

The real measure of what will happen to abortion while Trump is in office is the kind of people he’s empowering in his administration. Which is not exactly comforting! Take his latest awful pick: Conservative maniac Ed Martin will be the chief of staff at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

As CNN reports, the position is a big one—Martin will shape the administration’s legislative agenda via funding proposals and could impact how federal funding is used for programs on reproductive rights. And how does Martin feel about repro rights? Well, he thinks women who have abortions should be thrown in jail and that abortion should be banned without exceptions for women’s lives. Martin has said that it’s “an absolute scientific fact that no abortion is ever performed to save the life of the mother. None, zero, zilch.”

By the way, if Martin’s name sounds familiar to you, it’s also because I’ve written about him here at Abortion, Every Day: He drafted the supposedly ‘softened’ abortion language in the GOP platform that turned out to be a cover for fetal personhood, and later admitted that the platform’s definition of “late abortion” was meant to be whatever Republicans wanted it to be. “I call a late term abortion any abortion that is done after the baby is conceived,” he said. (I’ve been warning for over a year that conservatives are trying to redefine what ‘late’ abortion means.)

Quick hits:

• The New York Times with an interactive on the leading cause of death for pregnant women in America: homicide;

• A new study finds that most women aren’t using family planning services despite abortion bans and restrictions;

• Side Effects Public Media talks to the people who use birth control to manage health conditions and how worried they are about access;

• Finally, the white nationalist asshole Nick Fuentes who popularized the saying “your body, my choice,” has been arrested for assaulting a woman.

Listen Up

If you’re looking for a new podcast, check out “Outlawed” from OBGYNs Beverly Gray and Jonas Swartz. Their latest episode dispels myths about who gets abortions, and delves into why “centering the most historically marginalized patients improves care for everyone.”

Jessica’s Petty Corner

I might have to make this a new newsletter section, because I have way too many petty asides that need a home. The latest has to do with Christina Francis, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG)—the group that says abortion is never medically necessary and wants to force women with life-threatening pregnancies into c-sections rather than abortions, even when it’s too early for a fetus to survive. So yeah, an all around monster of a person.

Every time Francis does a media hit, she wears a white doctors’ coat emblazoned with the AAPLOG logo—which means it’s not a hospital lab coat, just one she wears to look doctorly. Yes, she’s an licensed OBGYN, but 1) how many patients do you actually think she’s seeing in her role as president of a leading anti-abortion group and 2) if she’s doing interviews from her office that means she’s putting on the lab coat before a hit in order to appear more credible.

We know why, of course—because she and her group are quacks who would sooner see women die than abortion be legal. But hey, so long as she looks the part!

Keep An Eye On

You all know I’ve been tracking how Republicans and anti-abortion organizations are increasing their efforts on abortion ‘reporting.’ Part of it is about the chilling effect such mandates have: If women know that doctors are required to turn in information about their abortions to the state, they’re less likely to get care. But the other thing they’re trying to do is skew data—particularly around abortion ‘complication’ reporting.

I published an investigation last year, for example, about how Texas law mandates that doctors report fake abortion ‘complications’ to the state in an attempt to fabricate data showing that abortion is dangerous despite all (credible) evidence to the contrary.

Well, now anti-abortion groups are exporting that tactic across the pond. Anti-abortion lawmakers in the UK are proposing a law that would require the government to publish an annual report on so-called abortion ‘complications.’

As pro-choice advocates there and here have pointed out: this has nothing to do with women’s health or safety and everything to do with anti-abortion politics. After all, lawmakers don’t mandate reports on complications of appendectomies!

I’ll be keeping an eye on all sorts of anti-abortion strategies that are being exported to other countries, but the stuff on data and reporting is especially interesting.