Ken Paxton suing California doctor in second lawsuit citing Texas abortion pill law

Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday sued an out-of-state provider of abortion-inducing pills and a California doctor under a new state law designed for abortion pill-related suits, weeks after a similar private suit was filed against the same doctor.

Aid Access is an nonprofit telehealth organization focused on providing abortion-inducing pills to women across the United States, including in places where abortions are illegal, like Texas. Paxton’s suit names the company, its founder Dr. Rebecca Gomperts and Dr. Remy Coeytaux of California as part of a “growing network of out-of-state abortion traffickers that deliberately target Texas residents.”

Filed in Galveston County District Court, the suit cites new statutes in the state’s health and safety code created by House Bill 7, which bars the creation and distribution of abortion-inducing drugs in Texas. The law, which went into effect Dec. 4, allows private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or provides abortion medication to or from the state for up to $100,000.

“My office will defend the lives of the unborn and relentlessly enforce our state’s pro-life laws against Aid Access and other radicals like it,” Paxton said in a press release about the suit.

The suit also claims Gomberts and Coeytaux illegally performed abortions without a Texas physician’s license. The suit seeks a temporary restraining order and injunction against Aid Access to prevent it from providing additional medication to others in the state.

On Feb. 1, Jerry Rodriguez of Galveston County filed a lawsuit against Coeytaux for allegedly providing abortion-inducing pills to his partner. Rodriguez’s suit, which accuses Coeytaux of providing his girlfriend with abortion pills at the direction of her ex-husband, was the first time HB 7 was cited in a lawsuit.

Rodriguez filed the original lawsuit in July, alleging the woman’s ex-husband ordered the abortion pills from Coeytaux. Subsequently, Rodriguez’s girlfriend took the pills and terminated a pregnancy on Sept.19, 2024, and another pregnancy in January 2025. Rodriguez claims in the lawsuit that he was the father in those pregnancies.

Rodriguez, through his lawyer Jonathan Mitchell, who helped design Texas’ abortion ban, updated the lawsuit in early February, largely stating the same allegations against Coeytaux. However, this time, Mitchell included HB 7 as an additional tool to compel Coeytaux to pay $75,000 in minimum damages, plus other fees, Rodriguez is asking for and to stop prescribing or providing abortion-inducing drugs in Texas.

HB 7’s opponents have called it a “bounty hunter law” because successful plaintiffs would be awarded at least $100,000 in damages. If the plaintiff is not directly related to the fetus, they would only be entitled to 10% and would have to give the remaining money to a charity of their choosing. Women taking abortion pills would not be eligible to be sued under the bill, nor would women who take them after miscarriages.

“If discovery reveals that Coeytaux has mailed, transported, delivered, prescribed, or provided any abortion-inducing drug to any person or location in Texas since HB 7 took effect on December 4, 2025, then Mr. Rodriguez will seek to recover at least $100,000.00 for each of those statutory violations,” Mitchell said in the updated lawsuit.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Coeytaux, released a statement condemning the lawsuit as a strategic attack to further implement legislation that undermine the choices women make about their body.

“This law goes against everything Texans value. It’s anti-freedom, anti-privacy, and anti-family,” said Marc Hearron, associate litigation director at the Center for Reproductive Rights, in the news release. “But these lawmakers are relentless in their attempts to scare doctors and patients from prescribing and accessing abortion pills – exactly because they are so safe, effective, and widely used across the United States.”

The use of abortion pills have skyrocketed after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

There have been estimates that as many as 19,000 orders for abortion pills from Texans were placed after Texas’ initial abortion ban was enacted. After Texas banned abortion, many turned to online pharmacies and out-of-state providers to obtain medication to terminate their pregnancies despite the bans.

Texas is among states leading on the crackdown of abortion pills. In December, Texas joined Florida in suing the Federal Drug Administration over the agency’s approval of mifepristone, a drug commonly prescribed to terminate pregnancies.

Darcy Caballero, government relations & political director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said some of the women most impacted by this law are those facing fatal fetal diagnoses.

“They are now having to face a real difficult choice of either going through with a labor that they know is not viable or have to leave the state to get the care that they need because otherwise the state is going to make it hostile for anyone to help them,” Caballero said.

The latest lawsuit raises similar legal questions that have popped up in other Texas lawsuits against out-of-state abortion pill providers, namely related to whether their state’s shield laws can protect them from Texas’ challenges.

Texas has previously sued two out-of-state abortion pill providers in New York and Delaware for violating Texas’ abortion laws, but New York and Delaware have shield laws which protect medical providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions. While the Delaware lawsuit was filed in January, a New York judge dismissed Texas’ case in October.

California has similar shield laws, which could also protect Coeytaux, legal experts have said.

California’s shield law could also allow Coeytaux to countersue Rodriguez, but in Sunday’s update, Mitchell pointed out language that Texas lawmakers wrote into HB 7 that prevents such counteractions.

Rodriguez’s lawsuit also alleges Coeytaux is in violation of the Comstock Act, an 18th Century anti-obscenity law. The Comstock Act has not been enforced for more than a hundred years, with some legal experts arguing it’s entirely unenforceable as a result, while others, including Mitchell, argue it can be used to federally criminalize mailing abortion pills.

Mitchell and HB 7’s author Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, did not return requests for comment.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.