California, February 5, 2026: A California-based physician has become the first person to be sued under Texas House Bill 7 (HB7), according to The Center for Reproductive Rights.
HB7 is a recently enacted law that allows private citizens to seek at least $100,000 in damages from anyone who mails abortion medication into the state.
Dr. Rémy Coeytaux is a San Francisco Bay Area physician. He was named in an amended complaint filed on February 1, 2026, by Jerry Rodriguez, a Texas man who claims that the doctor violated the new law.
Rodriguez alleges that Coeytaux mailed abortion medication to end Rodriguez’s girlfriend’s pregnancies twice, once in 2024 and again in early 2025. According to the complaint, the woman’s ex-husband ordered the pills from Coeytaux, which she then used to terminate the pregnancies. Rodriguez is represented by lawyer Jonathan Mitchell, one of the architects of the Texas abortion ban.
Rodriguez is suing the physician under HB7 for $100,000. He is also asking the court to prohibit Coeytaux from prescribing or providing abortion-inducing drugs in Texas.
The original lawsuit was filed in federal court on July 20, 2025, accusing Coeytaux of violating Texas’s wrongful death statute and various state abortion laws, as well as the Comstock Act. The lawsuit has now shifted to HB7, a new act recently passed.
HB7, formally titled the Woman and Child Protection Act, took effect in December and authorizes private citizens to sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides” abortion pills to people in Texas. The law allows individuals to seek damages of at least $100,000 and pursue injunctions against those who plan to continue supplying such medication.
According to The Center for Reproductive Rights, HB7 is a “bounty hunter law” that incentivizes private citizens to police the actions of Texans, doctors, and others.
Coeytaux is also facing criminal charges in Louisiana for allegedly mailing abortion pills to a Louisiana patient in October 2023. He was indicted on January 13, 2026, and could face up to 50 years in prison if convicted. However, California Governor Gavin Newsom rejected Louisiana’s extradition request on January 14, 2026, stating that California would not allow other states to punish doctors for providing reproductive healthcare services.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Coeytaux, condemned the lawsuit.
“This law goes against everything Texans value. It’s anti-freedom, anti-privacy, and anti-family,” said Marc Hearron, associate litigation director at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “But these lawmakers are relentless in their attempts to scare doctors and patients from prescribing and accessing abortion pills exactly because they are so safe, effective, and widely used across the United States.”
(Rh/VK)