The state of Texas filed a major lawsuit on Dec. 12 against a New York doctor who mailed abortion pills to a Collin County, Texas, woman, arguing that the doctor was practicing medicine without a Texas license and violating the state’s abortion ban. The suit raises messy legal questions about whether one state can haul a doctor abiding by the law in another state into its courts, or enforce a judgment if it wins. More than that, however, the suit is a window into the next battlefield over abortion rights — and how abortion pills and telemedicine are reshaping the politics of abortion in America.
The antiabortion movement’s endgame is establishing fetal personhood — the idea that life and constitutional rights begin at the moment sperm fertilizes an egg. But with blue states and many red states reaffirming a right to abortion, fetal personhood doesn’t seem like it’s going to come to pass anytime soon. In the meantime, abortion opponents have set their sights on shutting down access to abortion pills — mifepristone and misoprostol.
Here’s why: Medication abortion, also called chemical abortion, has made it difficult to enforce abortion bans in the states where they exist — indeed, even with Roe v. Wade reversed, studies show an increase in the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. Abortion pills also make it harder to frighten doctors and harder to stigmatize the termination of pregnancy.
The Texas lawsuit is part of a much broader antiabortion strategy that will unfold in the new year. Besides targeting telemedicine and pills, antiabortion groups plan to pursue anyone who aids or abets abortion — for example, internet service providers that allow websites to provide information about abortion pills and where to get them. Other proposals copy a Louisiana law that designates safe and effective drugs used in abortion as “controlled substances.”