GALVESTON COUNTY, Texas (Michigan News Source) – As a Texas man sues a doctor for mailing abortion pills that ended the lives of his two children, Michigan is busy doubling down on the very same practice.
According to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division, plaintiff Jerry Rodriguez’s attorney alleges, “Under the law of Texas, a person who assists a pregnant woman in obtaining a self-managed abortion commits the crime of murder and can be sued for wrongful death.”
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The complaint alleges that the defendant, California doctor Remy Coeytaux, in violation of a Texas murder statute, a wrongful-death statute and also a law that makes it a felony for anyone other than a Texas-licensed physician to provide an abortion-inducing drug for the purpose of inducing an abortion “mailed abortion-inducing drugs into Texas that were used to murder Jerry Rodriguez’s unborn child.” Rodriguez also seeks to get an injunction to stop the doctor from distributing abortion drugs in Texas on behalf of “all current and future fathers of unborn children in the United States.”
Two pregnancies, two abortions: a man’s legal battle begins.
Rodriguez filed suit after his girlfriend twice ended pregnancies with abortion drugs, alleging the unborn children were his based on the timing of their relationship, Kendal’s own statements, and supporting sonogram evidence.
According to the complaint, she became pregnant in July 2024 and initially planned to keep the baby, but her estranged husband – legally separated but not yet divorced – ordered abortion drugs from Dr. Remy Coeytaux in September and, along with the woman’s mother, pressured her into taking them even though she was more than 10 weeks along, beyond the FDA’s recommended limit for mifepristone and misoprostol.
The complaint further alleges that she became pregnant again in October and again intended to carry the child, but in January 2025, while nearly three months pregnant, she underwent a second medication abortion at her husband’s house.
Michigan abortions via Amazon.
However, while Rodriguez is fighting in court to defend the lives of his unborn children – and by extension future children across the country – pro-abortion advocates in Michigan are taking the opposite tack, working overtime to make abortion pills as accessible as possible to anyone who wants them.
Enter Hey Jane, a New York-based tele-abortion startup that brands itself as a “safe space for reproductive and sexual care.” The model skips in-person visits, ultrasounds, and follow-up requirements – relying instead on mailing pills and hoping complications don’t arise. Yet nearly 11% of abortion pill cases are reported to involve medical complications. Despite those risks, Hey Jane is pressing ahead with plans to expand into Michigan, touting that it has already provided services to more than 80,000 people who were able to “get the care that they need.”
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According to Right to Life of Michigan, “Planned Parenthood recently said it will also be expanding its telehealth services by 40% in Michigan. This increasing access to the abortion pill through the mail is a hazardous, profit-driven danger to women that Right to Life of Michigan will continue to monitor and combat by reaching women with the truth about the abortion pill and presenting them with the hopeful and courageous choice for life.”
Michigan’s abortion access declines amid clinic shutdowns.
According to a report out of the Detroit Free Press, it is difficult to find in-person abortion clinics in Michigan largely because of a physician shortage. Roughly one-third of the state’s counties have no obstetrician-gynecologists at all, according to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office. On top of that, 73 of Michigan’s 83 counties have no in-person abortion provider, leaving large swaths of the state without access. Planned Parenthood of Michigan has just 10 health centers left after closing three in April – including its only Upper Peninsula site – and consolidating two Ann Arbor clinics into one.
Planned Parenthood leaders said those closures were necessary to remain financially stable amid a federal funding freeze pushed by the Trump administration. The financial squeeze tightened further in July when Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed swiftly by President Trump. Among its provisions was a one-year ban on Medicaid reimbursements to large nonprofit health centers that also provide abortions.
An Obama-appointed federal judge in Boston, Judge Indira Talwani, issued an injunction on July 28, 2025, requiring the Trump administration to continue reimbursing Planned Parenthood clinics for Medicaid-funded health services – including contraception, STI testing, and cancer screenings – while litigation proceeds against them concerning the funding. Judge Talwani said in her order, “Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable.”
A rise in abortion-by-mail.
As Michigan News Source reported in June, after Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion by mail has surged, with the Society of Family Planning reporting about 1.1 million abortions in 2024 – one in four now through telehealth and mailed pills, nearly five times pre-Dobbs levels. Shield laws in states like California and New York protect providers who ship abortion pills into states with bans, while even in states where abortion is legal, many patients still prefer mail-order for convenience.
A tale of two realities.
While one father in Texas is battling in federal court to hold an out-of-state doctor accountable for mailing away the lives of his children, Michigan is opening the floodgates to the same practice – dressed up as healthcare innovation. In the end, Michigan’s message is clear: babies in the womb are a market, not a life. The only question left is whether the state’s women – and their children – will pay the price for a business model that values convenience and cash over care.
