Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, joined by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, filed a lawsuit Wednesday at the Supreme Court against New York, California and Massachusetts, arguing those states’ shield laws illegally block cooperation with investigations into abortion-pill providers.
The same day, the attorneys general also filed a separate lawsuit in Louisiana against more than 30 people and organizations accused of advertising, prescribing, dispensing or shipping abortion pills into their states.
“This is drug dealing and it’s illegal,” Murrill told Fox News Digital. “And we’re going to continue to do everything that we can to enforce the laws in our states.”
The filings mark the latest escalation in a state-by-state fight over abortion access that has intensified since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion policy decisions to individual states.
Extradition Fights Over Two Doctors
Louisiana has already indicted New York physician Margaret Carpenter and California physician Remy Coeytaux, accusing them of prescribing abortion drugs sent into Louisiana. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, have refused to extradite the doctors.
The Supreme Court complaint cites Louisiana’s failed attempt to extradite Carpenter, quoting Hochul’s statement that there was “no way in hell” she would comply. According to the filing, New York subsequently strengthened its shield law, including a provision letting prescribers of abortion drugs omit their names from prescription labels.
Newsom rejected a similar extradition request for Coeytaux in January, saying California would not help other states punish doctors for providing care that is legal within its borders. When Murrill said she would sue, Newsom responded on social media platform X, telling her to “Go f— yourself. California will never help you criminalize healthcare.”
Murrill defended the legal action in comparative terms. “I think that if I sent guns into their states illegally, they would certainly try to come after me,” she told Fox News Digital. “I said specifically at the time that we would be coming for them and we are. We are going to take down those laws using every tool that we have at our disposal.”
Targeting the ‘Pill Pipeline’
The second lawsuit, a 100-page complaint, alleges that providers used online questionnaires to collect customer information before mailing abortion drugs into states that prohibit their distribution. The states claim some organizations acknowledged their conduct violated local law while relying on shield laws for protection.
Murrill said investigators conducted controlled purchases and received pills in small bags, sometimes in quantities exceeding a typical prescription. “We’ve seen it for ourselves,” she said. “There’s no supervision, there’s no healthcare, there’s no communication whatsoever. It’s all done online.”
She said the lack of oversight has allowed people other than pregnant women to obtain the drugs, citing cases her office says involved women being pressured or deceived into taking abortion medication.
“We have a situation in one town in Louisiana that we’ve documented and investigated where a father did not want his teenage daughter to keep a pregnancy,” Murrill said. “And so he basically put the medication in a smoothie, forced her to drink it. She did ultimately give birth to that baby at 23 weeks and is still in a NICU fighting for its life.”
Calls for Federal Action
Murrill said Louisiana wants more assistance from the Trump administration, noting, “Obviously we think the FDA could be doing more and we’ve asked them to do that.” Louisiana has separately challenged federal rules that removed an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser backed the lawsuits, accusing blue states of using their laws “to obstruct justice” and calling on the Justice Department to settle Louisiana’s separate FDA litigation.
“Democrats’ pro-abortion extremism has brought this country to a crisis point. Abortion activists flagrantly sell dangerous drugs across state lines and women and children pay the price, with more and more survivors of ‘death in a pill’ bravely coming forward,” Dannenfelser said in a statement.
The governors’ offices of New York, California and Massachusetts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
