Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit accusing abortion drug provider Aid Access of illegally shipping abortion drugs into the Lone Star State, which bans the use of abortion drugs to terminate pregnancy.
A complaint filed Tuesday in the District Court of Galveston County, Texas, alleged that Aid Access and its associates are overseeing “an international abortion-by-mail enterprise that illegally ships abortion-inducing drugs into Texas in open defiance of Texas law.”
Aid Access was founded by Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gompers in 2018 and has provided abortion drugs online for women in the United States, especially those living in states with abortion bans in place.
“Aid Access’s illegal acts in Texas are not theoretical — they have already caused the deaths of unborn children across the state,” reads the complaint. “Aid Access is a notorious 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 suit alleges that Aid Access violates the Human Life Protection Act, Texas’ prohibitions on mailing abortion-inducing drugs, and state prohibitions on the unlicensed practice of medicine found in the Texas Occupations Code and the Texas Health and Safety Code.
“This illegal operation endangers the lives of unborn children and their mothers and must be stopped,” the complaint continues. “This Court should act swiftly to enjoin Defendants from continuing to operate their illegal scheme and impose civil penalties required by law for each violation of the Human Life Protection Act and related statutes.”
Defendants named in the lawsuit include California resident Dr. Remy Coeytaux, Netherlands citizen Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, the Austria-based Aid Access GmbH and the Netherlands-based Aid Access B.V.
In a statement released Tuesday, Paxton said that he and his office “will defend the lives of the unborn and relentlessly enforce our state’s pro-life laws against Aid Access and other radicals like it.” Last year, Texas passed a law allowing individuals to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or provides abortion drugs to people in Texas.
“Every unborn child is a life worth protecting, and Texas law reflects that fundamental truth. Radicals sending abortion-inducing drugs into our state will be held accountable for ending innocent life,” he added.
Aid Access has facilitated over 200,000 online abortions to women in the U.S. since its launch, claiming that “service is in line with the most recent research and guidelines.”
“The purpose of the Aid Access website and service is to create social justice and improve the health status and human rights of women who do not have the possibility of accessing local abortion services,” the website reads.
Last year, Aid Access was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by a woman who was forced to miscarry her unborn child when the father of her child spiked her drink with abortion drugs that he acquired through the abortion provider. Because Aid Access operates outside of the U.S., it makes it difficult for authorities to crack down on the company when it sends shipments into states with strict abortion laws.
“This tragic story presents a devastating rebuke of the false notion that deregulating the abortion drug mifepristone is safe for women,” Dr. Christina Francis, board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement provided to The Christian Post.
For years, pro-life advocates and lawmakers have spoken out against the Food and Drug Administration’s 2021 decision during the Biden administration to ease abortion pill regulations so they can be legally shipped in the mail. Critics claim that the policy change was “designed to give abortion activists license to mail drugs everywhere.”
Before amending its regulations, the FDA during the first Trump administration sent Aid Access a warning letter in 2019 calling on it to “immediately cease causing the introduction of these violative drugs into U.S. commerce.”
“By facilitating the sale of unapproved mifepristone and misoprostol to consumers in the U.S., Aidaccess.org causes the introduction of unapproved new drugs into U.S. commerce in violation of the FD&C Act,” the letter stated.
