Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama are suing New York, California, and Massachusetts over abortion-pill ‘shield laws.’
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama have announced that they are suing New York, California, and Massachusetts over abortion-pill “shield laws.”
Right before the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the hostility surrounding the abortion debate was at a high. Pro-life clinics were being attacked, threats were frequent. There was real concern about violence that June. Mercifully, street violence did not break out in the board-the-windows kind of way that we had seen during the Black Lives Matter days. There’s violence, for sure — abortion is the most intimate violence, after all — but not in the way people were concerned it might manifest. The reality is subtler.
The ease and availability of pills, even without doctor consultations, make mail-order abortion the norm, laws be damned. At a press conference this morning, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin likened abortion pills obtained through the mail to getting a street drug in a baggie. Dr. Ingrid Skop of the Charlotte Lozier Institute talked about the general lack of accountability and the danger involved fairly recently here.
Of course, women and girls often have no idea what they are in for when they opt for these pills. They are sometimes led to believe that they’ll experience something like a heavy period — rather than an ordeal and a confrontation with the remains of their baby that they actually face during a chemical abortion.
From Louisiana:
Attorney General Liz Murrill announced a multistate lawsuit in the United States Supreme Court challenging the abortion “shield laws” of New York, California, and Massachusetts. Joined by Alabama and Arkansas, Louisiana claims that the “shield laws” violate the Constitution and federal law by promoting and facilitating the distribution of thousands of illegal abortion drugs through the mail and preventing pro-life states from enforcing their own laws.
After the Dobbs decision returned the issue of abortion to the states, New York, California, and Massachusetts swiftly moved to circumvent the Supreme Court and the law of the land—not by simply codifying abortion in their own territories, but by actively seeking ways to nullify the sovereign rights of pro-life states. They did this by adopting shield-law policies that restrict cooperation with out-of-state law enforcement, limit extradition, prevent the enforcement of certain out-of-state judgments and subpoenas, and harbor providers who prescribe and mail illegal abortion drugs into pro-life states — all to assure shield-law state residents that they can violate pro-life states’ laws with impunity and no fear of negative repercussions.
And they didn’t even try to hide their motives. New York Governor Kathy Hochul proudly proclaimed, “They can’t stop us — they can’t stop our providers, they can’t stop New York, and that’s how we’re fighting back.”
Shield laws are thus not shields at all; they are swords disguised as shields and driven into pro-life states.
Louisiana is asking the Supreme Court to hold that these laws violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the equal-sovereignty doctrine, the federal common law of public nuisance, and the Dormant Commerce Clause.
Also:
The states further claim that the individuals and organizations made false or misleading representations concerning the safety, effectiveness, legality, risks, and appropriate use of abortion-inducing drugs, including minimizing potential complications and the need for in-person medical care. In Louisiana alone, their actions have resulted in the hospitalization of women and the deaths of thousands of unborn babies.
“The rule of law matters, and with this civil action, we are sending a clear signal that our states take our laws seriously. I have been proud to stand up for the lives of the unborn my entire time in public service, and I am proud to defend Arkansas’s pro-life laws through this civil action today. Arkansas’s General Assembly has repeatedly heeded the call to protect pregnant mothers and their unborn children, and I will continue to fight to uphold the General Assembly’s duly passed laws protecting life,” said Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin.
A culture that is antithetical to women’s health and safety is being shielded by politicians, doctors, and others in the service of a vicious ideological business.
I hope and pray that the pro-life states win this case. We also need to insist that this be an educational moment about what is really going on with abortion in America. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into indifference. Not on our watch.