A Texas man has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against a doctor who, he says, supplied abortion pills to his girlfriend.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in Texas on Sunday, Jerry Rodriguez alleges that the doctor, Remy Coeytaux, mailed the pills to Texas, where virtually all abortions are outlawed. Rodriguez’s girlfriend then allegedly used the pills to end two pregnancies.

Coeytaux not only broke a series of Texas anti-abortion laws, the lawsuit alleges, but also a 19th-century federal anti-vice law known as the Comstock Act. That act bans the mailing of abortion-related materials, but has been unenforced for decades, its scope narrowed by laws and court rulings – including Roe v Wade, which has since been overturned – that came into effect in the 20th century.

“Assisting a self-managed abortion in Texas is an act of murder,” the lawsuit alleges. Although Rodriguez’s girlfriend, the lawsuit continued, “cannot be charged with murder for her role in killing her unborn child, immunity does not shield Coeytaux from liability for aiding or abetting or directly participating in the murder”.