Attorneys general from three Republican-led states sued three Democratic-led states in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, arguing that laws shielding abortion providers from extradition and prosecution are unconstitutional.

Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama filed the lawsuit against New York, Massachusetts and California, arguing the blue states’ laws have violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, which requires states to respect the laws of other states; the equal sovereignty doctrine, which requires Congress to treat states equally; the so-called Dormant Commerce Clause, which prevents states from impeding interstate commerce; and the federal common law of public nuisance, which allows states to sue over harm inflicted by other states. The attorneys general are seeking an injunction preventing the other states from enforcing their shield laws.

Several blue states — nearly two dozen, plus Washington, D.C. — have laws protecting reproductive healthcare. Adopted after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in June 2022, many of the laws protect providers mailing abortion pills into states that ban or severely restrict abortion. But the lawsuit alleges those laws circumvent the high court’s decision to leave abortion policy to individual states, characterizing shield laws as “one of the most serious interstate aggressions in our Nation’s history” and “swords disguised as shields and driven into pro-life states.”

Referring to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overruled Roe v. Wade, the filing states, “Dobbs is no more than a parchment promise if shield-law states can defy this Court by unilaterally decreeing that abortions must flourish in pro-life states.”

The complaint cites refusals by Govs. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., to cooperate with extradition requests for providers in their states who mailed abortion pills to Louisiana as examples of how the shield laws impede their efforts to regulate abortion provision in their states.

In addition to the lawsuit filed before the Supreme Court, the three Republican-led states also filed a suit against more than 30 abortion pill providers — both individuals and entities — in the Western District Court of Louisiana, alleging they are violating federal and state laws in operating under shield laws.

Republicans have been seeking ways to curb the persistence of abortion, which has increased nationwide after the overruling of Roe. They have particularly sought to crack down on the remote prescribing and mailing of abortion pills. That method of providing the pills has played a large part in the numbers of abortions increasing after Dobbs, in part because it allows people in states with abortion bans to terminate their pregnancies without needing to travel out of state.

The Republican attorneys general who filed the lawsuits Wednesday said they were pushing back against what they characterized as attacks on their states’ sovereignty. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said her state “has made its position on abortion clear through the bipartisan will of the people’s representatives in its Legislature.” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the laws embolden out-of-state “bad actors.”

The attorneys general of the states being sued said the Supreme Court lawsuit exemplified the red states’ overreach.

“Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas are asking the Supreme Court to let them impose their abortion bans on New York and punish our doctors for providing legal healthcare,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In a statement to MS NOW, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the state’s law “sends a clear message that we protect the privacy of our patients and providers, and that we will not use state resources to punish people for personal healthcare decisions that are protected under Massachusetts law.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his state’s response is “hell no,” adding, “We have been a safe haven for reproductive rights, and we will fight to keep it that way.”

The direct filing to the Supreme Court is unusual, but the court has what is known as original jurisdiction when states sue one another. The justices are not obligated to rule in such cases and have historically done so only sparingly, making it unlikely they will have the final say in this one, according to Mary Ziegler, a historian of abortion law and a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

“While a challenge to shield laws was not just expected, but inevitable,” Ziegler told MS NOW, “this particular challenge to shield laws was a little bit of a head-scratcher.”

“I don’t know if [the Supreme Court] is going to look at this and think the lower courts have had enough of a crack at shield laws,” she added.

Abortion rights advocates slammed the lawsuits, while abortion opponents praised them.

Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, an abortion rights advocacy group, characterized the lawsuit as “the latest proof that Republicans were never going to leave abortion to the states — their ultimate goal is to ban abortion nationwide.” Healthcare providers, she said, “should not be punished for providing safe, legal care.”

The head of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America thanked the Republican attorneys general for bringing the cases. “The constitutional issue is clear: Blue states are playing politics to obstruct justice,” Marjorie Dannenfelser said.

With both sides making the same core argument — that their states’ abortion policies are being infringed upon — the lawsuits reflect that abortion law cannot be “left to the states,” as the Supreme Court ruled, without ongoing battles.

“The federal courts were never going to be out of the business of doing these kinds of cases,” Ziegler told MS NOW, “because the states weren’t going to leave one another alone.”

Lisa Rubin contributed to this report.

The post GOP states sue Democratic-led states in Supreme Court over abortion shield laws appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.