(The Center Square) – Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a Delaware-based nurse for mailing abortion pills to Texas residents in violation of state law.
On Tuesday, he sued Debra Lynch, a Delaware-based nurse practitioner who operates Her Safe Harbor, an “extremist group that ships abortion drugs into Texas,” Paxton said The group says it’s a “groundbreaking online network dedicated to affordable and compassionate reproductive healthcare services nationwide, including medication abortion.” It provides “medication assisted abortions delivered discreetly to your door,” as well as treatments for sexually transmitted diseases, emergency contraception and birth control.
The lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Jefferson County Texas alleging that Lynch “operates an illegal abortion-by-mail enterprise.” From her home in Delaware, she prescribes and ships abortion-inducing drugs into Texas – “knowingly and willfully violating Texas law,” the lawsuit states. Lynch routinely mails abortion drugs, including mifepristone and misoprostol, to women across Texas, including in Beaumont, Fulshear, Tomball, Houston and El Paso, the lawsuit alleges.
Her operation “is part of a growing network of out-of-state abortion traffickers that deliberately target Texas residents and defy this State’s duly enacted protections for unborn children and their mothers,” the lawsuit alleges. “Lynch has boasted to media outlets, including the Austin-American Statesman, that she ‘mails a lot [of abortion drugs] to Texas.’”
By doing so she is violating the Human Life Protection Act, Texas’ Health and Safety codes and prohibitions on unlicensed practice of medicine, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit was filed after Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law The Texas Woman and Child Protection Act, which is now in effect. Sponsored by state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, it creates civil penalties of up to $100,000 for producers and distributors of chemical abortion pills in Texas.
Despite Texas’ legislative abortion bans, abortion medications mifepristone (Mifeprex) and Misoprostol are being delivered in Texas. Through the new law, their sale and delivery are banned and civil liability tools are available to use “against those trafficking abortion pills,” including those “mailing, delivering, or trafficking abortion pills,” according to the bill language. The law holds liable manufacturers and distributors of abortion pills and allows women and their family members “to bring wrongful death and injury suits six years after being injured by abortion,” according to the bill analysis.
The bill was passed after concerns were raised about the alleged harm the pills cause women and girls. A new report published by Live Action cites health and safety concerns related to chemical abortion pills, including women needing emergency care for infection, hemorrhaging or other life-threatening adverse reactions. It also points to a lack of regulatory oversight of online dispensing with little to no accountability for what is mailed past gestational guidelines or to minors.
The law was enacted, and Paxton’s lawsuit was filed, after “two tragic cases in Texas” occurred “involving radical abortion activists and organizations facilitated men illegally purchasing abortion-inducing drugs,” Paxton said. “According to one lawsuit, a man used the drugs to secretly poison his girlfriend, causing the death of their unborn child, and sending the mother to the hospital,” he said.
He appears to be referring to a Parker County case when a Trump administration Department of Justice staffer allegedly ordered chemical abortion pills online and gave it to his girlfriend without her knowledge or consent, The Center Square reported. He was charged with capital murder and denies any wrongdoing.
Lynch’s “illegal operation endangers the lives of unborn children and their mothers,” Paxton said.
The lawsuit follows a cease and desist letter Paxton sent Her Safe Harbor and Plan C last August arguing they were likely violating the Comstock Act and multiple Texas laws.
The Plan C website states, “Abortion access in Texas is restricted, but abortion pills are still available by mail from providers outside of the state.” It notes that online clinics sell the pills to those “who want abortion pills by mail and follow-up support from a clinician;” websites sell the pills to those “who want abortion pills by mail without consulting a clinician;” and community networks sell the pills to those “who can’t afford other services and want free pills mailed by volunteers.”
The legal action also follows Paxton successfully suing and shutting down illegal abortion facilities in Texas, The Center Square reported.
