AG Nathan Johnson says he won’t sue out-of-state doctors who mail abortion pills to Texas

quote:

---

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

It’s the first big salvo against the state’s 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’s office under Ken Paxton, who gave up the role to run for Senate, has been a powerful enforcer of the state’s abortion ban laws and a Democrat coming into that position cuts off a powerful tool for the country’s anti-abortion movement.

The first thing I do when people ask me about abortion is point out that I’m not a legislator, and I can’t change abortion law,” Johnson told The Texas Tribune. “What 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.”

---