Latest news with #RemyCoeytaux
Fox News
3 days ago
- Health
- Fox News
Texas man sues California doctor in unprecedented abortion pill case over unborn child's alleged ‘murder'
A Texas man has filed a landmark federal wrongful death lawsuit against a California abortion provider, alleging the physician "murdered" his unborn children by mailing abortion pills across state lines. The case, Rodriguez v. Coeytaux, marks the first of its kind to test how far pro-life litigants can go to sidestep blue state abortion shield laws using century-old federal statutes and Texas civil code. Filed July 20 in the Southern District of Texas, the lawsuit accuses Dr. Remy Coeytaux of aiding illegal self-managed abortions in 2024, by mailing abortion-inducing drugs to Galveston County, Texas, where they were allegedly used to end two pregnancies. Plaintiff Jerry Rodriguez claims his girlfriend's estranged husband purchased the pills from Coeytaux through a Venmo transaction and pressured her to take them, ending two pregnancies Rodriguez says were his. At the heart of the suit is an alleged $150 Venmo payment to "Remy Coeytaux MD PC" labeled "Aed axes," followed by his girlfriend's name. The lawsuit states Rodriguez interprets "Aed axes" to be a phonetic spelling of "Aid Access," a network that helps women obtain abortion pills. Rodriguez alleges the first abortion occurred in September 2024, at the home of his girlfriend's mother, and the second in January 2025, at the home of her estranged husband. Ultrasound images from January, attached as Exhibit 2, are offered as proof of a second pregnancy. According to the complaint, the baby was a boy. Rodriguez is seeking over $75,000 in damages, certification of a national class of "fathers of unborn children," and a permanent injunction barring Coeytaux from mailing abortion drugs in violation of state or federal law. The complaint's legal foundation has drawn attention. The lawsuit revives the long-dormant Comstock Act, an 1873 federal anti-obscenity law banning the mailing of abortion-related materials. Though unenforced for over a century, the Comstock Act remains on the books. Jonathan Mitchell, the attorney behind Texas's heartbeat law (SB8), represents Rodriguez in the case. He argues that Dr. Remy Coeytaux violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461 and 1462, the federal Comstock Act, by knowingly using the mail to send abortion-inducing drugs from California to Texas. The suit also alleges Coeytaux committed felony murder under Texas Penal Code § 19.02 by knowingly aiding an illegal abortion. It cites multiple violations of Texas law, including statutes that require abortion drugs to be administered only by in-state physicians, after informed consent and a mandatory ultrasound, and only at licensed abortion facilities. Coeytaux, who is not licensed in Texas, allegedly met none of those requirements. The case is already being seen as a strategic test of blue state abortion shield laws. States like California, New York, and Washington have passed measures to protect their abortion providers from legal risks when treating out-of-state patients. But Rodriguez's legal team avoided those roadblocks by filing a civil wrongful death suit directly in federal court, a move some legal scholars say could offer a new route for anti-abortion plaintiffs to reach providers beyond their own state's borders. As of Friday, court records show Coeytaux had not filed a response to the complaint, and he has not made any public statements about the case. Pro-abortion groups are expected to contest both the interpretation of the Comstock Act and the standing of private citizens to bring wrongful death claims tied to out-of-state telehealth prescriptions. If the case survives early procedural hurdles, it may offer a new template for pro-life litigants to target the supply chain of abortion pills three years after Dobbs was decided at the Supreme Court. Coeytaux did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- The Guardian
Texas man sues doctor for allegedly supplying abortion pills to girlfriend
A Texas man has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against a doctor who, he says, supplied abortion pills to his girlfriend. In the lawsuit, which was filed in Texas on Sunday, Jerry Rodriguez alleges that the doctor, Remy Coeytaux, mailed the pills to Texas, where virtually all abortions are outlawed. Rodriguez's girlfriend then allegedly used the pills to end two pregnancies. Coeytaux not only broke a series of Texas anti-abortion laws, the lawsuit alleges, but also a 19th-century federal anti-vice law known as the Comstock Act. That act bans the mailing of abortion-related materials, but has been unenforced for decades, its scope narrowed by laws and court rulings – including Roe v Wade, which has since been overturned – that came into effect in the 20th century. 'Assisting a self-managed abortion in Texas is an act of murder,' the lawsuit alleges. Although Rodriguez's girlfriend, the lawsuit continued, 'cannot be charged with murder for her role in killing her unborn child, immunity does not shield Coeytaux from liability for aiding or abetting or directly participating in the murder'. Rodriguez is seeking damages against Coeytaux as well as an injunction that would forbid Coeytaux from mailing abortion pills across state lines. Rodriguez wants that injunction, he said in his lawsuit, 'on behalf of a class of all current and future fathers of unborn children in the United States'. Rodriguez also claims the injunction is necessary because his girlfriend is allegedly pregnant again, and he fears her husband – from whom she is separated – may urge her to have another abortion. His girlfriend's previous abortions were also at her estranged husband's convincing, according to Rodriguez's lawsuit. This lawsuit marks the latest attempt by anti-abortion activists to target the mailing of abortion pills, which have become a major avenue of abortion access in the three years since the US supreme court overturned Roe, and to revive enforcement of the Comstock Act. In December, Texas sued Margaret Carpenter, a New York doctor, over allegations that she violated Texas law by mailing abortion pills to a Texas woman. In January, a Louisiana grand jury criminally indicted Carpenter over accusations that she mailed a pill to that state, too. Anti-abortion activists' have been urging men who are angry about their female partners' abortions to come forward and launch litigation. However, because the Carpenter lawsuit was ultimately filed by the office of Ken Paxton, the Texas Republican attorney general, experts believe it may be fatally hobbled by a quirk of US constitutional law. Mary Ziegler, a University of California, Davis law school professor who studies the legal history of reproduction, has told the Guardian that while the US constitution forces states to recognize fines levied in lawsuits between people, it does not necessarily do the same for fines that result from lawsuits that have been brought by states. Because Rodriguez is suing as an individual, his lawsuit may sidestep that hurdle. Coeytaux declined to comment on the litigation. According to his LinkedIn profile, Coeytaux is based in California, where abortion remains legal, and which has a 'shield law' in place to protect abortion providers who mail abortion pills across state lines. They have never been put to the test in court. Rodriguez is being represented in his lawsuit by Jonathan Mitchell, an attorney who masterminded a six-week abortion ban that went into effect in Texas in 2021. Although Roe was still the law of the land when the ban took effect, it withstood legal scrutiny because of its unique design: rather than being enforced by the state, it deputized people to sue one another over suspected illegal abortions.
