March 27 (UPI) — A New York county clerk is refusing to process a $113,000 fine against a New York doctor found guilty of prescribing abortion-inducing medications in Texas.
Acting Ulster County N.Y. clerk Taylor Bruck on Thursday refused to grant the Texas motion to enforce the Collin County District Court order against Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of New Paltz, N.Y., the New York Times reported.
Carpenter did not respond to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit accusing her of illegally dispensing abortion-inducing medication in Texas that he says killed a fetus and caused the mother to suffer serious medical complications.
Collin County Texas District Court Judge Bryan Gantt in February entered a default judgment against Carpenter and ordered her to pay a $113,000 fine and stop sending abortion medication to Texas.
Bruck cited New York’s telemedicine abortion shield laws that protect services providers against out-of-state penalties for providing abortion-inducing medications to patients located in other states when refusing to process the Texas court judgment against Carpenter.
New York is among eight states that enacted such laws after the Supreme Court in its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade and ruled the federal government has no say in abortion laws.
The clerk’s refusal to process the court order against Carpenter is the nation’s first instance of a state invoking shield laws to protect abortion services providers, and the matter likely will wind up before the Supreme Court, the New York Times reported.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged Carpenter dispensed abortion medication in Texas and said she also faces similar legal trouble in Louisiana.
“The anti-woman, anti-abortion zealots are at it again,” Hochul said Thursday in a prepared statement.
“Paxton is trying to come after a New York doctor who prescribed abortion medication via telemedicine — the same doctor who is facing charges in Louisiana for the so-called ‘crime’ of prescribing this FDA-approved medication,” Hochul said.
She said Bruck formally notified Texas that he is rejecting the filing of judgment against Carpenter in accordance with New York’s shield laws.
“New York is grateful for his courage and commonsense,” Hochul said. “This is New York. We’ll never back down from fighting for these fundamental rights.”
Carpenter has provided medical and surgical abortions since 1999 and in 2020 began dispensing abortion-inducing medication nationwide despite being licensed to practice medicine only in New York, Paxton said in the court filing against Carpenter.
“Dr. Carpenter knowingly treated Texas residents despite not being a license Texas physician and not being authorized to practice telemedicine in Texas,” Paxton said in a Dec. 13 news release.
Paxton said Carpenter is the founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine and “unlawfully provided a Collin County resident with abortion-inducing drugs that ended the life of an unborn child.”
He said the 20-year-old mother suffered “serious complications” that “required medical intervention.”
In May, Carpenter provided the woman with the abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, Paxton said in the court filing.
The woman on July 16 sought emergency medical treatment at a Collin County hospital for a hemorrhage or severe bleeding and hadn’t told the father of the unborn child that she was pregnant, Paxton said.
Texas law prohibits a physician or medical supplier from providing abortion-inducing drugs by courier, delivery or mail service and bans telehealth services in Texas by doctors who do not hold a valid Texas medical license,” Paxton said.
Carpenter did not respond to Paxton’s Texas lawsuit accusing her of unlawfully providing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents in violation of state law, which resulted in the default judgment against her.
