In a legal maneuver that pushes the bounds of state power, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a petition in New York, urging a local court to enforce a \$100,000 judgment against a doctor more than a thousand miles away. Her alleged offense? Mailing abortion pills into Texas from her practice in New Paltz, New York.
Dr. Margaret Carpenter, a co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, is at the heart of this intensifying interstate battle. Texas claims she violated its abortion laws by prescribing mifepristone and misoprostol — the two drugs commonly used in medication abortions — to a Texas woman via telemedicine. A Texas judge issued a default judgment in February after Carpenter reportedly failed to respond to the suit.
But Ulster County’s Acting Clerk Taylor Bruck has refused to cooperate — twice. His reasoning rests on New York’s “shield law,” which bars state officials from helping enforce out-of-state laws that conflict with New York’s protections for reproductive rights. Bruck, who is currently campaigning for a permanent position as county clerk, says his stance reflects a commitment to uphold New York law and defend “fundamental rights.”
“This isn’t just about paperwork,” Bruck said in a statement. “This is about standing between our residents and the reach of another state’s ideology.”
Paxton, meanwhile, framed the issue in the language of moral warfare, calling Carpenter “a radical abortionist” who should not escape the “full force” of Texas’s laws just because she operates elsewhere.
While the doctor has yet to issue a public response, her legal troubles don’t end in Texas. She has also been indicted in Louisiana for prescribing abortion pills that were reportedly taken by a teenager — a rare case where a state has attempted to criminally charge an out-of-state doctor for a prescription written beyond its borders. New York’s governor previously blocked an extradition request from Louisiana.
The unfolding standoff underscores a widening legal rift between states in post-Roe America, where abortion access — or the lack of it — is no longer just a matter of geography but a collision of legal systems. If Texas prevails in this case, it could open the door for similar lawsuits aimed at providers in other states, and accelerate an already volatile tug-of-war over reproductive care in the United States.
