Democratic politicians make it their chief goal to defend abortion. Only then, when they have the chance to do so, does their patriotic instinct swell.

Such is the case with Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) in recent comments she released backing up New York’s “shield laws,” or protections for illegal abortion providers in the event that they are prosecuted. “I will uphold not only our Constitution, but the laws of our land,” Hochul said.

Her statements are a response to a recent case wherein a New York-based abortionist mailed chemical abortion pills to a woman in Louisiana, where abortion is illegal, who reportedly forced her daughter to take them. The then-pregnant minor suffered an emergency room visit and lost the baby.

While the specific legal situation is relatively novel, the circumstances are not. The same doctor has been providing chemical abortion pills through telemedicine to people in other abortion-restricted states such as Texas, where a judge has issued a permanent injunction against her.

At first glance, the case appears tricky: Abortion legality has been handed to the states, and two polar opposite laws are butting heads as a result. Some might say that is the inevitable consequence of refusing to outlaw abortion nationally. The more pressing matter to settle, however, is which law will take sovereignty over the other.

That is for lawyers to figure out as the case climbs its way to the Supreme Court. But it does seem clear: The law was first violated in Louisiana — a law whose practicality, unlike New York’s shield law, does not rely on a malicious hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that New York is protecting blatantly illegal actions on the prerogative of its own “legal regime.”

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Meanwhile, Hochul and others decline to extend their patriotic passion to immigration law. This land, your land, my land — all of it faces the arguably more active issue of illegal immigration, which does have the stamp of federal authority. Hochul has so skirted immigration requirements that the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against New York state.

In terms of rhetoric — “the laws of our land” — immigration law defiance is certainly more surprising to hear from her. But it is no surprise that fidelity to abortion trumps every other duty of the Democratic politician.