Texas is suing a New York doctor for providing abortion drugs (banned in Texas) to a Texas citizen. That Texas citizen ended up in the hospital after complications from the drug.
So this is going to become a thing. While several states have provided abortion laws restricting certain types of abortions as well as the time restrictions, states like New York are passing so called "shield laws" to protect their local doctors who decide to send abortion drugs to out of state citizens in violation of those state laws.
In other words, while Texas makes it illegal for any doctor to make use of telehealth (online examinations) or prescribe drugs without a Texas medical license, New York has a law that supposedly protects their doctors from being sued or charged with crimes from other states, even if they break the laws of those states. These laws were passed specifically in response to the Dodds ruling and very specifically so their own doctors could send abortion drugs to citizens of other states (who have abortion restrictions) without repercussions. Now it will be up to the courts. First the Texas courts, and likely Federal courts to make sense of this.
Texas has at least some precedent on their side with a 2021 USSC ruling that held internet sellers are responsible for making sure that their product is legal in the states they are selling to. For instance, here in Washington it is illegal to gamble on-line. If you go to an on-line gambling site, you are not allowed to use the site if you provide your Washington address. You could lie, but then you would be breaking the law. Similarly, local marijuana dealers certainly are not allowed to send their product to anyone out of state. Of course, it is currently an all-cash business, making internet purchases moot, but the point would still be the same. I am not sure it would be considered constitutionally legal to pass a law shielding local pot dealers from any legal troubles they get into by sending pot to a state where it is illegal.
Using the pot example here, anyone with any driver's license can go into a local pot shop and purchase pot (regardless of the laws of the state), because the transactions is fully made and completed in Washington. So in theory, there would be nothing to stop the Texas women from driving to New York (or wherever it is legal) and getting the drug there. But on the flip side, it is also illegal for doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients where it is illegal in their state. Doesn't matter what state that doctor resides in, that medical marijuana card would not be valid in the patient's state, and that doctor is not allowed to mail you marijuana to get around it. So New York seems to be trying to carve out an exception for the abortion pill, in a situation where no other examples apply.
Some are arguing that if the doctors just ignore the summons, then in essence Texas would have no defendant. But others suggest that if the doctors ignore the summons, that Texas courts will just order a summary judgement due to a lack of response. The second seems more logical to me. Of course, then you get into the whole idea of how you can actually enforce the judgement if New York is attempting to protect and shield their doctors. Without any coordination between states, arresting or collecting a judgment can be difficult. This is where it is very likely that the Federal courts will become involved.
There are obvious Federal issues of State extraterritoriality, interstate commerce, and just some basic commonsense issues that will make it next to impossible for the Federal courts not to step up and make a call on this. I would venture a bet (just not online) that this will eventually make it to the USSC for another big abortion decision. I also would bet (just not online) that the courts will lean towards Texas, for no other reasons of the slippery slope idea that any state could pass a law to legalize most anything and then push that law onto other states by similar types of protection or shield laws. Sometimes when the legal questions are foggy, the worst-case scenarios become a real issue for the courts to battle with.
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