SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday rejected a request to extradite a California doctor accused of offering abortion medicine to a Louisiana affected person, marking the newest conflict between states with sharply completely different abortion legal guidelines following the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s 2022 choice overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Louisiana’s request is denied,” Newsom stated in a press release. “My place on this has been clear since 2022: We won’t permit extremist politicians from different states to succeed in into California and attempt to punish medical doctors based mostly on allegations that they offered reproductive well being care companies. Not in the present day. Not ever.”
The extradition request stems from felony expenses filed in Louisiana in opposition to Dr. Rémy Coeytaux, a California-based doctor accused of prescribing and mailing abortion capsules to a Louisiana resident in 2023 by means of a telemedicine service. Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill introduced the indictment Tuesday, and Gov. Jeff Landry stated he would signal an extradition order.
“It’s appalling to see the California Governor and Legal professional Basic overtly admitting that they’ll defend a person from being held accountable for unlawful, medically unethical, and harmful conduct that led to a girl being coerced into terminating the lifetime of her unborn little one,” Murrill stated in response to California’s actions.
Because the Supreme Courtroom eradicated the constitutional proper to abortion in 2022, a rising variety of states have moved to criminalize reproductive care. About 16 states, together with Texas and Louisiana, now ban abortion nearly completely, with some permitting felony penalties or civil lawsuits in opposition to suppliers.
These legal guidelines have heightened considerations amongst physicians about potential authorized publicity when touring to or training throughout state traces — even when their dwelling states explicitly defend reproductive and gender-affirming care.
Newsom’s workplace stated federal and state legislation give the governor discretion to say no extradition requests when the alleged conduct occurred in California. The governor pointed to an govt order he issued shortly after the Supreme Courtroom’s abortion ruling, in addition to subsequent laws, designed to protect California suppliers and sufferers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions.
The case underscores a widening authorized standoff between states with near-total abortion bans and those who have enacted so-called protect legal guidelines to guard suppliers who supply abortion care, together with medicine abortions, to sufferers from restrictive states. California is amongst a minimum of eight states with such protections.
Newsom forged his choice to reject the extradition as a part of a broader push by California to guard reproductive rights as Republican-led states transfer to limit abortion entry.
“We’ll by no means be complicit with Trump’s conflict on girls,” Newsom stated.
