Texas Man Sues California Doctor in Federal Court for Mailing Abortion Pills to Girlfriend, Ramping Up Battle Against Shield Laws

A Texas man is suing a doctor in California, whom he alleges mailed abortion medication to his girlfriend to terminate two pregnancies. The lawsuit might speed up the process of the Supreme Court deciding the constitutionality of shield laws. The plaintiff, Jerry Rodriguez, filed his lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The complaint lists a California-based doctor, Remy Coeytaux, as the defendant. The lawsuit alleges that Dr. Coeytaux mailed the abortion-inducing drugs to Mr. Rodriguez’s girlfriend in September 2024 in violation of Texas and federal law. Mr. Rodriguez also alleges that his girlfriend acquired abortion-inducing medication in January 2025 to terminate another pregnancy, and says his girlfriend is once again pregnant and he “fears” that she will again terminate the pregnancy.Mr. Rodriguez seeks a judgment of at least $75,000 in damages against the doctor for the “wrongful death of his unborn child,” and an injunction on behalf of “all current and future fathers of unborn children in the United States” to stop the doctor from sending abortion medications in “violation of state or federal law.”The lawsuit is the latest legal effort to chip away at shield laws, which are designed to protect doctors who mail abortion medication to states where the procedure is banned. However, Mr. Rodriguez’s suit differs from efforts by officials in Texas and Louisiana in that it was filed in federal court intead of state courts. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit against a doctor in New York, Margaret Carpenter, for allegedly mailing abortion-inducing medication to the Lone Star State. A Texas judge ordered Dr. Carpenter to pay more than $100,000. However, a county clerk in New York declined to file the judgment in the state. Separately, officials in Louisiana filed criminal charges against Dr. Carpenter, and the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, signed an extradition order. Yet that attempt also stalled out as Governor Hochul defiantly rejected the extradition request. Supporters of Texas and Louisiana argue that New York’s shield law violates the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, which requires states to recognize legal judgments of other states. In Louisiana’s case, there are questions about whether New York is violating the extradition clause of the Constitution, and whether Dr. Carpenter can be called a fugitive since she was not operating in Louisiana when she mailed the medication. Mr. Rodriguez’s lawsuit in federal court, which was brought by a lawyer who helped craft Texas’ abortion restrictions, Jonathan Mitchell, is seen as an effort to speed up the process of getting the matter of shield laws before the Supreme Court. The dean of Temple Law School, Rachel Rebouché, told the Texas Tribune that a federal judge may not rule in favor of Mr. Rodriguez. “The complaint tries to make it out like the physician has been acting unlawfully, but that’s not true under California law,” Ms. Rebouché said. “At their heart, shield laws are about the question of whose law is in effect, and that’s true in federal court too.”She also suggested that California’s shield law gives Dr. Coeytaux the ability to counter-sue Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez’s lawsuit also appears to be an attempt to get the Supreme Court to weigh in on the anti-obscenity Comstock Act of 1873, which has not been enforced for decades but is still on the books. The law prohibited the mailing of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” materials. It also banned the mailing of contraception or medication intended to induce an abortion. In 1971, Congress repealed the portion that prohibited the mailing of contraception, but lawmakers have failed to strip out the reference to abortion. In 2022, President Biden’s Department of Justice issued a determination that said the Comstock Act “does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.” It argued that because there are “manifold ways” that recipients in every state may lawfully use such drugs, including to produce an abortion,” the mailing of such drugs to a particular jurisdiction “is an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.”Opponents of abortion hope that the Supreme Court will decide that the Comstock Act prohibits the transportation of such abortion inducing medication.

Texas Man Sues California Doctor in Federal Court for Mailing Abortion Pills to Girlfriend, Ramping Up Battle Against Shield Laws

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