(The Center Square) – More lawsuits have been filed against chemical abortion providers under new laws in Texas and Louisiana.
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, abortion is illegal in more than two dozen states, including Texas and Louisiana, with some exceptions. Despite the states’ abortion bans, abortion medications mifepristone (Mifeprex) and Misoprostol are being ordered online and mailed to the states, prompting lawsuits and a battle between red and blue states with diametrically opposite laws.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott last year signed into law The Texas Woman and Child Protection Act, which creates civil penalties of up to $100,000 for producers and distributors of chemical abortion pills in Texas. It created civil liability tools to use against those “mailing, delivering, or trafficking abortion pills,” and holds liable manufacturers and distributors of abortion pills. It also allows individuals “to bring wrongful death and injury suits six years after being injured by abortion.”
Recent criminal cases indicate that men are allegedly purchasing the pills to give to women without their knowledge or consent to kill their unborn children, The Center Square reported. They have been arrested and charged with a range of crimes.
In another case, a Galveston resident, Jerry Rodriguz, was the first to sue under the new law as a private citizen. He sued Rémy Coeytaux of Sonoma County, Calif., last year, amending his complaint last month and the judge approved a new motion last week, according to court records. At the same time, the state of Texas sued Coeytaux after Louisiana again took action in January.
“Under the law of Texas, a person who aids or abets another person’s self-managed abortion commits the crime of murder and can be sued for wrongful death,” Rodriguez’s complaint states. “It is also a state jail felony for anyone other than a Texas-licensed physician to provide an abortion-inducing drug for the purpose of inducing an abortion. In violation of these and many other laws, defendant Remy Coeytaux mailed abortion-inducing drugs into Texas that were used to murder Jerry Rodriguez’s unborn child.”
According to the complaint, Rodriguez was having an affair with a woman who was legally separated and not divorced from her husband. After finding out she was pregnant with Rodriguez’s child, the husband purchased abortion pills from Coeytaux and the wife knowingly and willingly took them, ending the pregnancy, according to the complaint. The affair continued, she got pregnant again with Rodriguez and again aborted the baby using the same method, according to the complaint.
“The wrongful-death statute allows surviving parents to sue those who cause the death of an unborn child by a wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness,” the lawsuit states. Rodriguez is only suing the California provider, not the woman he was having the affair with or her husband.
Meanwhile, Coeytaux was indicted in Louisiana and in January, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said a criminal arrest warrant had been signed for him and his name was entered into the National Crime Information Center database. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry also criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom for supporting abortion “in all forms.”
Newsom has said California protects doctors and patients and for years has encouraged Texans and others to come to California to have abortions, The Center Square reported. In early stages of pregnancy, women don’t have to travel to California to have an abortion, they can order chemical abortion pills from California instead, abortion advocates argue.
Several blue states like California have abortion shield laws that prevent officials from complying with extradition requests, subpoenas or other actions taken by attorneys general in other states.
Coeytaux is an “affiliate” of Aid Access, one of several online chemical abortion pill networks Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also sent cease-and-desist letters to last August.
Now, he’s sued them in the District Court of Galveston County.
Paxton sued Aid Access GmbH, Aid Access B.V., Coeytaux, and Rebecca Gomperts, alleging they are operating “an international abortion-by-mail enterprise that illegally ships abortion-inducing drugs into Texas in open defiance of state law.”
Aid Access states that “abortion pills for people living in all 50 U.S. states are prescribed and mailed by our US abortion providers for $150 or less.”
Paxton’s lawsuit cites examples of abortions that have been committed in Texas using mail order chemical abortion pills. “In 2025, a Nueces County man allegedly used abortion-inducing drugs obtained from an out-of-state provider to secretly poison his girlfriend, resulting in the death of their unborn child. Despite tragedies like this, Aid Access continues to market and distribute abortion drugs to Texas residents in open defiance of Texas law,” Paxton said.
In January, Paxton sued a Delaware-based nurse practitioner for similar reasons. Last year, a Houston-area woman, Maria Rojas, and others, were sued and arrested for allegedly operating illegal abortion clinics, The Center Square reported.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is defending Coeytaux and Rojas and says the lawsuits are baseless. It also argues, “Officials in states with abortion bans also are teeing up challenges to other states’ shield laws, hoping to give courts the opportunity to strike down these laws that protect doctors who mail abortion pills outside their state.”
