Ken Paxton Sues Nurse Practitioner for Talking About Sending Abortion Pills to Texas

On Tuesday, Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas) filed a new lawsuit against a Delaware-based nurse practitioner for allegedly shipping abortion pills into Texas, making this the third healthcare provider in a blue state he’s filed a lawsuit against in his dogged pursuit to challenge shield laws.

Laughably, the lawsuit doesn’t even cite a specific instance of Dr. Debra Lynch—who runs a telemedicine organization, Her Safe Harbor—sending abortion medication to any specific patient. Instead, the suit calls her a drug trafficker and merely points out that “Lynch has boasted to media outlets” about mailing abortion pills into Texas. Over the past year, Lynch has spoken with the New York Times and the Austin American-Statesman about her crucial work—an action that, once upon a time in the United States, was protected by the First Amendment.

“The day of reckoning for this radical out-of-state abortion drug trafficker is here,” Paxton said in an idiotic press release. The filing, first reported by the Guardian, asks the court to block Lynch from “performing, inducing or attempting abortions” in Texas, which has a total abortion ban that only has a very vague life-of-the-mother exception.

Delaware is one of 22 states and Washington, DC with a shield law, which protects healthcare workers from prosecution for providing abortion care to patients in states with abortion bans. Paxton first went after shield laws in December 2024, when he filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the New York-based Dr. Margaret Carpenter, after she allegedly mailed abortion pills to a Texan woman. Paxton has since suffered a long string of losses: in March, an acting county clerk invoked New York’s shield law to block his lawsuit; in July, that same clerk shot down an appeal by Paxton, calling him out for resubmitting the same materials and adding, “While I’m not entirely sure how things work in Texas, here in New York, a rejection means the matter is closed”; and in November, a judge shut down a court order that Paxton filed against the clerk for refusing to comply. Paxton had 30 days to appeal the latest ruling, but let the deadline pass.

Louisiana’s anti-abortion AG Liz Murrill (R) also tried to indict Carpenter in 2025, as well as the California-based Dr. Remy Coeytaux. In August, Paxton filed a cease-and-desist against Coeytaux, Lynch, and one other telehealth provider. At the time, Lynch said it wouldn’t stop her work, and said that after news of the letter got around, Her Safe Harbor received more than 150 requests for abortion pills from Texans—Paxton cites this in his lawsuit.

“To date, the Office of the Attorney General has not received a response from the Defendants,” Paxton wrote. “Instead, the following month, Lynch announced to one media outlet that Her Safe Harbor was continuing operations unabated. According to Lynch: ‘We don’t fear fines or jail time at all.’” Again, what Paxton seems most pissed off about is the First Amendment.

---

Like what you just read? You’ve got great taste. Subscribe to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to a bunch of subscriber benefits, including getting to read the next article (and all the ones after that) ad-free. Plus, you’ll be supporting independent journalism—which, can you even imagine not supporting independent journalism in times like these? Yikes.