{"id":906399,"date":"2026-11-05T05:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T05:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/906399\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T05:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T05:12:09","slug":"nathan-johnson-wont-sue-out-of-state-abortion-pill-providers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/906399\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan Johnson won\u2019t sue out-of-state abortion pill providers"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Less than 24 hours after a historic sweep of Texas\u2019 statewide elected offices by Democrats, the state\u2019s attorney general-elect Nathan Johnson said Tuesday he will not continue Ken Paxton\u2019s practice of suing doctors<\/a> in other states for sending abortion medication to patients here. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first big salvo against the state\u2019s four-year-old near abortion ban which makes the procedure virtually impossible to access in this state and is likely to be the first of many tweaks to make the ban less rigid. The attorney general\u2019s office under Ken Paxton, who gave up the role to run for Senate, has been a powerful enforcer of the state\u2019s abortion ban laws and a Democrat coming into that position cuts off a powerful tool for the country\u2019s anti-abortion movement. <\/p>\n

The first thing I do when people ask me about abortion is point out that I\u2019m not a legislator, and I can\u2019t change abortion law,\u201d Johnson told The Texas Tribune. \u201cWhat I can do is cease using Texas abortion laws as an instrument of persecution and intimidation, harassment and political showboating. All four of those things have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is illegal for Texas doctors to mail abortion medication within the state and Paxton has sued doctors in other states who prescribe the medication, chilling Texans from obtaining these pills, abortion advocates say. Those lawsuits have run up against blue states\u2019 so-called shield laws that protect physicians who send abortion medications.<\/p>\n

Johnson said he won\u2019t be suing those out-of-state doctors anymore. \u201cI will not pursue the judicially absurd position that Texas law has extra territorial effect. I can honor other states\u2019 shield laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this eliminates an obstacle to accessing abortion pills, Democrats won\u2019t be repealing the abortion ban anytime soon. <\/p>\n

Despite the increasing use of executive power by Gov. Greg Abbott, Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa cannot legally repeal the abortion ban with her own pen stroke. She also told Politico in September<\/a> that repealing the ban would not be a priority because it would require Republicans to pass such a bill and that seems unlikely. <\/p>\n

Instead, University of Houston political professor Brandon Rottinghaus points out she can greatly limit how the law is applied. Hinojosa has said that she would work to end penalties for doctors who perform life-saving abortions, although lawmakers provided additional protections for doctors in these situations last year.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cShe can influence how portions of the law are implemented, and how certain exceptions are interpreted, and other reasonable additional restrictions that might become law eventually,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Anti-abortion advocates like John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, aren\u2019t worried about a new \u201cstandalone abortion bill\u201d being passed this upcoming session, but he is concerned incoming Democratic leadership will turn back decades of Republican-led inroads in restricting the procedure. <\/p>\n

He could see Hinojosa and other Dems making it tougher for programs like the former Alternatives to Abortion program, now renamed Thriving Texas Families, which sends over $200 million to private contractors to, in part, counsel pregnant women out of abortions, among other services. He said Hinojosa has consistently voted against the program and that he could see her defunding it or transferring the funding to another program. <\/p>\n

The agency overseeing the program, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, has an agency commissioner, Stephanie Muth, whose appointment expires Feb. 1. Seago said he also fears that Hinojosa could also use her own appointment power to put someone else in charge of the agency and begin to change how those private contractors are scrutinized.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the upcoming Sunset process that could grant Hinojosa greater influence. HHSC faces Sunset review, where lawmakers determine what to change within an agency, including eliminating whole departments or agencies. <\/p>\n

Lawmakers have broader rein to reshape budget priorities for an agency facing Sunset review and that too could include slashing funding for the Thriving Texas Families program. <\/p>\n

The state\u2019s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee also faces a Sunset evaluation. Women\u2019s health advocates have lambasted the committee, which is under the Texas Department of State Health Services\u2019 purview, for delaying the release <\/a>of its latest biennial report this year, which is expected to include a review of deaths that have occurred after the state\u2019s abortion ban went into effect. Members have also called on the Legislature<\/a> to allow them to review abortion-related deaths but to no avail. <\/p>\n

Also Hinojosa could put in her own slate of the Texas Medical Board appointments. A block of the 19-member board has terms expiring this April and she could put appointees who could revise the board\u2019s guidance to physicians about the legal protections they have when they perform an abortion to save a patient\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the TMB issued guidance to doctors that fell far short<\/a> of what health care advocates had wanted. At first, the panel was hesitant to offer how to interpret medical exceptions to the state law even after the Texas Supreme Court called on the<\/a>m to \u201cassess various hypothetical circumstances, provide best practices, identify red lines, and the like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TMB reworked the guidance but many were still unsatisfied saying it put too much of a burden on the doctor making the shots when seconds count to save a mother\u2019s life. <\/p>\n

Seago is also confident that despite Johnson\u2019s announced refusal to actively pursue the flow of drugs from other states, other states will continue their own challenges to stop abortion medication coming by mail. He adds that the state\u2019s \u201cbounty hunter\u201d law<\/a> that allows private lawsuits against abortion medication providers who violate the Texas abortion ban will not be revisited this next session and will remain on the books. <\/p>\n

Still, abortion reproductive advocates like raven e. Freeborn, executive director of Avow Texas, a statewide group advocating for abortion access and reproductive rights in Texas, will not let the Senate\u2019s Republican majority prevent them from trying to undo the abortion ban with a new law. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going for the most unapologetic vision of abortion access, which is abortion access without exceptions,\u201d said Freeborn. \u201cI think it\u2019s important for us to look at this opportunity in this moment and to be as unwavering about the world that we need immediately.\u201d <\/p>\n

She pointed to how it took decades for the GOP to outlaw abortion in Texas and her group is prepared for a long fight. \u201cThey didn\u2019t do that in one legislative session but they were consistent in what they were narrating. And so we\u2019re stepping up to be just as bold.\u201d <\/p>\n

Disclosure: University of Houston has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune within the past five years. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[28960,23,4515,222324,6590,311555,3,2186,379150,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-906399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-abortion","tag-america","tag-democrats","tag-gina-hinojosa","tag-ken-paxton","tag-nathan-johnson","tag-news","tag-republicans","tag-texas-right-to-life","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}