Lawfare Without Borders

How Texas Is Testing Whether State Power Can Travel Further Than Its Laws

By Cherokee Schill

Ken Paxton isn’t really trying to win these cases. At least not in the narrow sense of prevailing on the merits under existing law. The deeper objective is to create a governing pathway—one that redefines where state power is allowed to reach, and how fear can do the work that enforcement cannot.

Texas cannot fully stop abortion access inside its borders anymore. Pills move through mail, telemedicine, networks of care that don’t require clinics or local providers. So the strategy shifts. Instead of sealing the border, Paxton is trying to extend it—jurisdictionally, procedurally, psychologically.

Every lawsuit is a probe. Can Texas claim that “effects in Texas” are enough to regulate conduct elsewhere? Can it say that prescribing medication to a Texan, while sitting in Delaware, is “practicing medicine in Texas”? Can it persuade a court to issue an injunction that, even if unenforceable out of state, still hangs over a provider like a sword? Each filing is an experiment in how far the law can be bent before it snaps.

This is why the Lynch case is thin on facts. Paxton doesn’t need proof of specific abortions. He’s testing whether speech, interviews, and general admissions—“we mail pills to Texans”—are enough to trigger legal consequence. If that works even once, the standard drops dramatically. The chilling effect becomes the enforcement mechanism.

The real target isn’t just providers. It’s shield laws.

Blue states passed them assuming a defensive posture: refuse extradition, refuse cooperation, block enforcement of judgments. Paxton is trying to find the seams. Timing questions. Discovery requests. Contempt motions. Conflicting injunctions. Even unsuccessful suits force states to show their hand—what they will block, what they can’t, how far they’re willing to go to protect providers before political will falters.

This is attrition lawfare. You don’t need to win cleanly. You just need to raise the cost of participation until fewer people are willing to bear it.

There’s also a longer arc. Paxton is building a record for federal review. If he can get lower courts to disagree—on jurisdiction, on licensing theory, on interstate effects—he manufactures the “conflict among the circuits” the Supreme Court uses as an invitation. At that point, the question isn’t abortion pills anymore. It’s whether one state’s moral regime can reach across borders and override another state’s healthcare policy.

That’s the prize.

If Texas succeeds, even partially, it establishes a precedent that states can export prohibition through courts rather than borders. Today it’s abortion. Tomorrow it’s gender-affirming care. After that, contraception, speech, information. Any domain where one state decides another’s laws are immoral enough to ignore.

His media visuals matter. The intimidation matters. Because these are surface signals intended to show posture to those watching. But these are surface effects. The real work is structural: redefining jurisdiction, exhausting opponents, and slowly normalizing the idea that sovereignty only applies when conservatives approve of the outcome.

That’s why he’s trying. And that’s why it matters that he doesn’t win—not even accidentally.

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