A California doctor this week became the first physician to be sued under a new Texas law that allows private citizens to pursue civil legal action against anyone who provides abortion medication in Texas.

In the lawsuit, first filed in Texas federal court in July 2025, Jerry Rodriguez alleged that San Francisco Bay Area doctor Remy Coeytaux violated Texas laws prohibiting anyone other than a Texas-licensed doctor to provide abortion inducing drugs when he mailed medication to terminate Rodriguez's girlfriend's pregnancies on two occasions — once in 2024 and in early 2025.

Rodriguez claims in the lawsuit, which alleges wrongful death, that the pills were ordered by his girlfriend's estranged husband who then pressured her to take them to end the pregnancies. Attorney Jonathan Mitchell, who is representing Rodriguez, filed an amended complaint seeking an injunction to bar Coeytaux from mailing pills into Texas under House Bill 7, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who "manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides" abortion pills to Texans.

The law allows private citizens to sue doctors to collect damages for pills sent after the law took effect and seek an injunction against anyone who intends to distribute such pills in Texas.

The Texas law, known as the Woman and Child Protection Act, took effect in December and immediately drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers and activists who raised concerns that the bill attempts to override other state's abortion laws since it would primarily target out-of-state providers.

The amended claim represents another front in the growing battle between conservative and liberal states over abortion access in the post Roe vs. Wade era. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022, the use of abortion pills increased dramatically, with women from Republican states where access to the procedure was restricted seeking the pills from out-of-state providers.

"The lawsuit, and others like it, are really about trying to force this issue into federal court and getting federal courts to weigh in on this question of what happens with conflicting state laws related to abortion care," said Diana Kasdan, legal and policy director for the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at UCLA. "Those questions have been out there for a long time."

Although some supporters saw the overturn of Roe vs. Wade as a way to settle the abortion debate by allowing states to dictate policy for themselves, the reality is that the move triggered fighting between states that will eventually have to be settled by the courts, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at UC Davis.

"HB 7 on its own doesn't eliminate these tensions or determine that Texas is going to win these conflicts. It's just meant to be more ammunition for that battle between the states," Ziegler said.

For now, the fight is on. As states where abortion is banned aim to make access more difficult, states such as California and New York have passed shield laws to protect doctors from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions as well as professional discipline and civil liability for prescribing pills to women seeking them from across the nation.

Still, some Republican-led states with abortion bans have tried to discipline doctors to dissuade them from providing such medications. Texas' HB 7 law incentivizes civil lawsuits against practitioners who prescribe abortion medications to women via telehealth, opponents say.

In 2025, Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton sent a cease-and-desist letter to Coeytaux, threatening to prosecute the doctor if he did not stop mailing abortion-inducing drugs into the state.

Early this month, Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill announced an indictment against Coeytaux, allegedly for "trafficking" illegal abortion pills in violation of state law. "This is not healthcare; it's drug dealing," Murrill wrote in a news release.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by denying Louisiana's request to extradite Coeytaux to the state to face criminal charges.

"My position on this has been clear since 2022: We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive healthcare services. Not today. Not ever," Newsom said.

Coeytaux could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The Texas civil lawsuit filed against Coeytaux appears to be seeking monetary penalties under HB 7. The lawsuit states that if it's discovered that Coeytaux provided abortion-inducing drugs to anyone in Texas after the law took effect, then Rodriguez will seek to recover at least $100,000 for each of the violations.

Rodriguez also is asking the court to block Coeytaux from countersuing under California's shield law, which allows individuals to recover damages and attorneys fees from anyone who files a civil action against them for providing reproductive care that's legal in California.

"One of the arguments for overturning Roe was that federal courts were going to be taken out of the equation because they were less representative and democratic than state legislatures. But of course when state legislators and state courts are fighting each other, the people who are going to step in and resolve those conflicts are the same federal judges," Ziegler said.

Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Coeytaux, said Texas' new law is "one of many meant to cut off access to abortion pills, which are a lifeline for women in post-Roe America."

"Abortion opponents have launched a full-scale attack on abortion pills — in the courts, in legislatures, and inside the FDA. People need to wake up to the fact that the anti-abortion movement is trying everything possible to have mifepristone taken off the market nationwide or become much harder to get," Northup said.

_____

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.