New York county clerk says Texas cannot fine abortion doctor

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

On Thursday, acting Ulster County, New York clerk, Taylor Bruck, refused to enforce a Texas court ruling against a doctor who has been accused of mailing abortion pills across state lines. Brock cited New York’s shield law, which, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James, was passed specifically to protect abortion providers. According to the New York Times, this marks the first instance of a shield law being applied to defend a physician from the abortion restrictions of another state.

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who lives and works in New York, allegedly prescribed and sent abortion pills through the mail to a patient in Texas, where almost all abortions are illegal. A Texas judge fined her US$113,000 and ordered her to stop sending the pills to patients in Texas.

Bruck refused to file the lawsuit in New York and cited the New York State Shield Law but declined to comment further in anticipation of further litigation.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said more: “New York’s shield law was created to protect patients and providers from out-of-state anti-choice attacks, and we will not allow anyone to undermine health care providers’ ability to deliver necessary care to their patients.”

Shortly after filing the initial lawsuit, Texas Attourney General Ken Paxton told the press “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.”

Louisiana, which also has strict anti-abortion-rights laws, asked New York to extradite Carpenter so she could be prosecuted for allegedly mailing abortion pills to a woman in Louisiana who gave them to her daughter, but New York governor Kathy Hochul refused.

In 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that had rendered abortion legal throughout the United States. Overturning it meant each state could make its own laws regarding abortion, and they have come to differ widely. Some states, such as Texas and Louisiana, banned nearly all abortions and created new laws allowing anyone who helps a woman seek an abortion to be sued or prosecuted.

Lawyer, Alejandra Caraballo, who wrote about state-to-state extradition in Law Review told Jezebel, “We haven’t seen this kind of disparity in state laws around human rights since the Civil War. What constitutes a human right in one state is a capital crime in another.”

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!