When Gov. Gavin Newsom, utilizing his government energy, refused to extradite a doctor accused of prescribing and mailing abortion tablets to a Louisiana girl, he mentioned California would “not ever” permit “extremist politicians” to punish its docs.
Newsom, who’s contemplating a run for president, has lengthy championed reproductive rights, however state lawmakers within the Democratically managed California legislature know future governors won’t have the identical political views.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox Information host endorsed by President Donald Trump, has vowed to honor all these extradition requests from different states if he’s elected, saying that Louisiana “is trying to uphold what its people voted for, and California is undermining it.” His opponent, Democrat Xavier Becerra, has mentioned he would deny the requests.
Laws advancing in Sacramento is the most recent chapter in a tit for tat that’s been occurring between conservative and liberal states since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal authorized protections for abortion.
A invoice by state Meeting member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, which is being heard in committee, would take some selections out of the governor’s arms, requiring governors to disclaim extradition requests for healthcare suppliers who prescribe abortion medicine or administer gender-affirming care. It could additionally protect anybody in California who helped sufferers journey to California or one other state to obtain authorized care. Whereas opponents solid “shield laws” as an incursion on different states’ authority, supporters of the invoice view it as insurance coverage — even with Becerra main Hilton 52% to 31%, in response to Might polling by the College of California-Berkeley Institute of Authorities Research.
Newsom spokesperson Marissa Saldivar mentioned the governor doesn’t touch upon pending laws. Hilton and Becerra didn’t return requires remark.
“Protecting providers from prosecution should not rely on shifting political winds or a single person’s decision,” mentioned Alyssa Sherer, a nurse practitioner who spoke in help of the invoice at a Senate committee listening to in June. Sherer can be the medical director at Hey Jane, a telehealth medicine abortion supplier.
13 states have banned abortion outright, and 28 different states ban abortion someplace between six weeks and viability. On the identical time, different states that permit abortion have enacted protect legal guidelines to guard docs and nurses from legal responsibility after they prescribe throughout state traces.
Folks residing in states with complete abortion bans are more and more getting abortion tablets prescribed through telehealth, from 74,000 abortions in 2024 to 92,000 abortions in 2025, in response to the Guttmacher Institute, citing numbers from its Month-to-month Abortion Provision Research.
Critics of protect legal guidelines say that states have a reputable curiosity in implementing their very own statutes and that such legal guidelines signify an try by some states, like California, to nullify the authorized selections of others.
“If California says, ‘We’re not going to honor any other state’s laws. We’re going to ship abortion pills into your states. You can’t have a law that says abortion is illegal,’ I don’t know — that doesn’t seem like a workable situation,” mentioned Greg Burt, who’s vp of the California Household Council and has spoken in opposition to protect legal guidelines on the State Capitol.
Twenty-one different states and Washington, D.C., have related protect legal guidelines, however Arizona, California, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania’s depend on an government order, which may very well be reversed by a successor, in response to the Guttmacher Institute.
Amanda Barrow, a senior employees lawyer on the Heart on Reproductive Well being, Regulation, and Coverage at UCLA Regulation, mentioned passing extradition protections would put California on firmer footing, as a result of an government order “could be revoked by a governor who is anti-abortion or anti-gender-affirming-care.”
Hilton has mentioned he would just do that if elected.
“Just as I wouldn’t want to see Louisiana coming in and undermining something that we voted for here in California,” the GOP candidate instructed KQED in January.
Throughout a Might gubernatorial debate, Becerra mentioned he was strident about defending reproductive rights because the state’s lawyer normal. “Absolutely no,” Becerra mentioned of permitting California physicians to be extradited.
This yr, Hawai‘i added gender-affirming care to its existing shield laws. And Oregon expanded extradition protections, including banning law enforcement from cooperating with out-of-state or federal investigations into care that’s authorized within the state.
However Republican legislators in conservative states have solid telehealth visits as an finish run round their legal guidelines. And a few have moved to limit abortion capsule entry.
The governors of Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have signed payments this yr that criminalize the sale, buy, or distribution of medicine that induces an abortion. These states make it a felony to offer medicine abortion medicine to people who find themselves looking for to finish a being pregnant. The legal guidelines impose as much as 10 years in jail with doubtlessly tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in fines.
Mississippi amended the state’s managed substances code so as to add abortion tablets as a legal class. Though the state already prohibits abortion broadly, the measure particularly addresses distribution, which may topic out-of-state suppliers to prosecution.
In January, Louisiana tried to extradite a California physician, Remy Coeytaux, accused of mailing abortion tablets to a affected person. Newsom denied the request. Likewise, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul denied Louisiana’s February 2025 extradition request for a physician in her state.
Texas has taken a barely completely different authorized tact. Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton, a Republican working for the U.S. Senate, obtained a default judgment of greater than $100,000 towards the New York physician focused by Louisiana, however a choose dismissed it, citing New York’s protect legislation. Neither Paxton nor Louisiana Lawyer Normal Liz Murrill responded to requests for remark.
Worry of being charged with against the law for offering high quality medical care is contributing to physicians leaving drugs, mentioned Sacramento emergency room physician Kamara Graham, who’s vp of the California chapter of the American School of Emergency Physicians, which is supporting the invoice.
“It’s really conflicting and hard for us to weigh that concern of: Will I get extradited and charged and potentially be taken away from my family? Or do I do the right thing for my patient?” Graham mentioned.
The supply of medicine utilized in most abortions may quickly change nationwide. Underneath the management of Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Meals and Drug Administration just lately confirmed it’s conducting a security evaluation of mifepristone, one among two drugs in capsule type that’s utilized in most U.S. abortions. The FDA maintains the drug is protected and efficient.
If the FDA have been to determine that mifepristone just isn’t protected, such a ruling would supersede state legal guidelines, even in states the place abortion is authorized. If mifepristone is restricted, many telehealth teams have mentioned they’d swap to utilizing solely the opposite medicine, misoprostol.
“The elephant in the room is whether the Trump administration, particularly after the midterms, makes some kind of move to put national limits on access to abortions,” mentioned Mary Ziegler, a legislation professor at UC-Davis who has written a number of books on reproductive well being legislation.
“Not everything is something that the legislature can solve for,” Ziegler mentioned, “because there’s some uncertainty about how the federal courts are going to react to all of this.”
