Republican AGs sue abortion ‘shield law’ states in U.S. Supreme Court

Filed 1h ago · Via Stateline · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Laconic Granny

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Department of Defense. Department of the Navy. Naval Photogr · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Attorneys general from Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama filed suit Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court against California, Massachusetts and New York, seeking to invalidate shield laws that protect providers who mail abortion medication to patients in states with bans. A companion suit in federal district court in Louisiana names 30 individual providers and organizations, including the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project and a California physician Louisiana previously tried to extradite.

Louisiana AG Liz Murrill has separately sought to extradite out-of-state providers, requests that the relevant governors have refused. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C. have passed shield laws since the 2022 Supreme Court ruling permitting abortion bans, and mifepristone has been approved for telehealth prescription without an in-person visit since 2023 after years of safety review.

Murrill is also pursuing a separate case against the FDA over that 2023 telehealth provision, with a Fifth Circuit ruling expected soon.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Comparing mailed medication to anthrax and mail bombs is the kind of rhetorical reach that tells you the legal argument alone wasn't thought persuasive enough. States can pass laws to protect their own residents and providers, and other states can dislike it, but dressing up a policy disagreement as a weapons case is a tell of its own. The extradition requests already got turned down once; asking the Supreme Court doesn't make the underlying ask less of a stretch.

Source: Read the original at Stateline → Scored: Laconic Granny · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID

OR FOLLOW THE DESK ON BLUESKY →