Texas sues New York official for refusing to take action against abortion provider
Ken Paxton, Texas's attorney general, has petitioned the New York state supreme court to order a county clerk to enforce a fine against Dr Margaret Carpenter, a New York doctor accused of mailing abortion pills across state lines.
Paxton accused Carpenter last year of mailing abortion pills to a Texas woman in defiance of Texas's ban on virtually all abortions. After Carpenter failed to show up in a Texas court, a judge ordered her to pay more than $100,000 in penalties.
But the acting Ulster county clerk, Taylor Bruck, in New York has twice rejected Paxton's efforts to levy that fine. Under New York's 'shield law', state law enforcement officials are blocked from complying with out-of-state prosecutions against abortion providers who ship pills to patients, even if those patients are located outside New York state.
'No matter where they reside, pro-abortion extremists who send drugs designed to kill the unborn into Texas will face the full force of our state's pro-life laws,' Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement announcing Monday's filing.
Bruck, 34, said that he was just following New York state law.
'I'm just proud to live in a state that has something like the shield law here to protect our healthcare providers from out-of-state proceedings like this,' Bruck said. 'This has the potential of getting appealed up and up and up.'
Paxton's petition marks the latest escalation in the burgeoning clash between states that protect abortion rights and those that do not. In the three years since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, abortion opponents in red states have repeatedly tried to push for legislation and litigation that would curtail people's ability to cross state lines for abortions or to receive abortion pills in the mail. Meanwhile, blue states, including New York, have enacted an array of shield laws to preserve people's abortion access.
The US supreme court will probably be forced to step in to settle these debates between states, legal experts say.
'Ultimately, it's a states' rights argument,' Bruck said, adding that he remains 'still stunned by the whole thing'.
'It's not something I was really expecting, coming into this role,' Bruck said. 'It's really unprecedented for a clerk to be in this position.'
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