A judge in New York State on Friday dismissed a lawsuit in the first legal challenge by a conservative state against shield laws intended to protect health care providers who send abortion pills to patients in states with abortion bans.
The lawsuit was filed in July by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, to compel a New York court to enforce an order by a Texas judge in a case filed last year against a New York doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a patient in Texas. The order levied a $113,000 penalty on the physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, and barred her from continuing to send abortion medication to Texas.
Mr. Paxton’s efforts had been rebuffed earlier this year by the acting clerk of Ulster County, N.Y. The clerk, Taylor Bruck, refused to accept Mr. Paxton’s legal filing, citing New York’s shield law, designed to protect health care providers who prescribe abortion pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans.
Under shield laws, which about 20 states have adopted in some form, the authorities are prevented from obeying subpoenas, extradition requests and other legal actions that other states take against abortion providers. The laws are a stark departure from typical interstate practices of cooperating in legal matters.
On Friday, Ulster County Judge David M. Gandin dismissed Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit against Mr. Bruck, ruling that it “fails to set forth allegations sufficient to make out a claim of a violation of lawful procedure or an error of law.”
He said that because “the medical services Dr. Carpenter rendered are legal in New York State,” her conduct “falls squarely within the definition of ‘legally protected health activity’” under the shield law. “In fact, her activities were the precise type of conduct” the shield law “was designed to protect,” the judge wrote.
New York and seven other states have particularly comprehensive shield laws, which explicitly protect providers who prescribe abortion pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans.
The case was being closely watched as a possible constitutional showdown because, in his filing against the county clerk, Mr. Paxton had claimed that the shield law violates the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, which says that states should generally respect other states’ laws.
In Friday’s decision, the judge did not engage the constitutional issue. Rather, he ruled on Mr. Paxton’s procedural claim that the clerk was legally required to accept Texas’ filing to try to enforce the Texas court order.
Judge Gandin said that while Mr. Paxton’s filing cited the Full Faith and Credit Clause, he did not ask the judge for “an independent declaration” that the shield law was unconstitutional. Because constitutionality was not an issue in his decision, the judge said, he also rejected a motion by the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, to intervene in the case. In September, Ms. James had announced that she would move to intervene in the case because of Mr. Paxton’s constitutional argument.
It is possible that the constitutional debate will resurface if the case is appealed to higher courts, legal experts said.
Pam Belluck is a health and science reporter for The Times, covering a range of subjects, including reproductive health, long Covid, brain science, neurological disorders, mental health and genetics.
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