Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill fired back against Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) in an intensifying interstate conflict involving the shipping of abortion pills in violation of Louisiana state law, a conflict that is widely considered to be heading for the Supreme Court.
In an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner, Murrill said the Louisiana extradition order that was signed by Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA) on Tuesday for the arrest of Margaret Carpenter, a New York doctor who prescribed abortion pills for a Louisiana minor, is the same as it would be for other criminal drug offenses that cross jurisdictional boundaries.
“There’s a warrant out for [Carpenter’s] arrest nationally, the same as if she had sold cocaine. And in fact, it’s no different,” said Murrill. “She sold drugs that are illegal to sell. She delivered them into our state. It’s not any different.”
Hochul has defended Carpenter and her practice since the grand jury indictment late last month, which marked the first criminal charge against an out-of-state abortion provider since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
On Thursday, Hochul said she would refuse to comply with the extradition order, noting that her state’s shield laws were implemented shortly following the fall of Roe to protect abortion providers in Carpenter’s position.
“Louisiana has changed their laws, but that has no bearing on the laws of the state of New York,” said Hochul in a video statement posted on X Thursday. “Doctors take an oath to protect their patients. I took an oath of office to protect all New Yorkers.”
Murrill responded to Hochul’s X post on Thursday evening, saying the New York governor “is protecting a drug dealer who victimized a child.”
Prosecutors in the case said the pregnant teenager wanted her unborn child and was in the midst of planning a gender reveal party when her mother threatened to kick her out unless she took the abortifacient drugs to end her pregnancy. That constitutes a coerced abortion under Louisiana state law.
The minor suffered complications and received emergency medical treatment, ultimately losing her pregnancy. Murrill did not disclose more information about how far along the victim was in her pregnancy or any details about the victim’s age.
Carpenter is also facing severe civil penalties for sending abortion pills into Texas following a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in December.
Murrill was not involved in the grand jury indictment of Carpenter or the minor’s mother, but she told the Washington Examiner that the grand jury returned its decision within 10 minutes of deliberation.
“It’s incredible to me that the governor of New York is out there defending someone who never even saw the person she sent the pills to, that she didn’t send the pills to the patient,” Murrill said. “It is completely irresponsible, and it’s absolutely medical malpractice.”
New York is one of 8 states with a shield law that protects telehealth abortion providers from criminal prosecution in other states that have banned or significantly restricted abortion following the fall of Roe.
Safety regulations, including in-person screening requirements, for the abortion agent mifepristone were removed by the Food and Drug Administration during the COVID-19 pandemic in part to make telemedicine abortion access easier during lockdowns. Anti-abortion advocates continue to litigate against this rule change to re-institute in-person screening requirements.
As of last May, approximately 40,000 abortions occurred in 2023 in states with abortion bans due to abortion pills prescribed by telehealth providers being shipped from states with shield laws.
Experts affiliated with the abortion-rights Society of Family Planning estimated that the number of abortions in the United States has increased slightly since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, largely due to wider access to mifepristone via telehealth prescriptions from practitioners such as Carpenter.
Erik Baptist, senior counsel at the anti-abortion law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Washington Examiner that, although his firm is not involved in the case, he expects the conflict to quickly escalate to the Supreme Court.
“This conflict is definitely a constitutional crisis in the making because the state of New York is blatantly violating the U.S. Constitution,” said Baptist, citing the full faith and credit clause that requires states to uphold the laws and orders of other states.
Baptist said under Dobbs, states have the right to determine abortion policy within their borders. However, shield laws are different, he said, because they are designed with the intention of interfering with other states’ abilities to enact their own legislation to regulate abortion.
“It’s nothing to do with protecting what they would call a right to abortion, the ability to have abortions within the state boundaries of New York,” Baptist said. “It’s to undermine the ability of other states to do something different.”
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Murrill told the Washington Examiner she could not share the next steps in the federal litigation of the case but that she is taking a closer look at the powers of a governor to “just unilaterally block an extradition because they feel like it.”
“They just think that because they’re pro-abortion and they don’t like the laws of our state that it justifies anything they want to do,” said Murrill. “It’s morally wrong, it’s legally wrong, and it’s dangerous.”