Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Wednesday that his state would refuse to extradite a doctor who has been charged in Louisiana with providing abortion pills to a resident of that state.
“Louisiana’s request is denied,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services. Not today. Not ever.”
On Tuesday, Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, a Republican, released an indictment accusing a California abortion provider, Dr. Rémy Coeytaux, of prescribing and mailing abortion pills to a woman who had found the telemedicine abortion service the doctor worked for in October 2023, shortly after discovering she was pregnant. Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, also a Republican, said hours later that he would sign an extradition order for the doctor.
Louisiana authorities learned about the case in March 2024 and issued an arrest warrant for Dr. Coeytaux in May 2024, according to affidavits from investigators and other documents that Louisiana released, which do not say who reported the abortion to state investigators.
The case is the latest escalation in the battle between states that has arisen since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the national right to abortion in 2022. About a third of states, including Louisiana, currently have near-total bans on abortion. About 20 others have some type of abortion shield law, including at least eight states — California among them — that explicitly refuse to cooperate with prosecutions, lawsuits or investigations against providers who supply abortion medication to states with bans.
California’s telemedicine abortion shield law was passed in September 2023 and took effect in January 2024. But almost immediately after the 2022 Supreme Court decision, Governor Newsom signed an executive order “protecting state-held data and information from being used by out-of-state anti-abortion entities to target providers and patients, and declining requests received from other states to extradite health care providers for providing reproductive health care services,” the governor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Legal experts expect the battle over whether states need to honor one another’s abortion laws to eventually lead to a constitutional showdown that could reach the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, in testimony about medication abortion before a Senate committee in Washington, Ms. Murrill said she was committed to prosecuting people who violate Louisiana’s abortion laws. “Shield laws in some states protect providers from liability, and effectively nullify laws in our states,” she said. “Their purpose is to make it more difficult to sue or prosecute individuals in those states where abortion drugs are prohibited.”
Dr. Coeytaux, who is charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, did not respond to a request for comment.
The documents released by Louisiana say that the woman, who is not named, received abortion pills in the mail after supplying the telemedicine service with her personal information on a form and paying $150. She took the medication and terminated her pregnancy soon after, the documents said. From the package’s postal tracking number, the investigators determined that the medication had been sent from a business in Dr. Coeytaux’s name.
The case is the second time that Louisiana officials have sought criminal prosecution and extradition of an out-of-state doctor over the prescription of abortion pills. Last year, Louisiana sought to extradite a New York-based abortion provider, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, whom the state indicted on similar charges. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, has refused to agree to her extradition, citing the state’s abortion shield law. So far, Louisiana has not taken further action to try to extradite Dr. Carpenter.
Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
Pam Belluck is a health and science reporter for The Times, covering a range of subjects, including reproductive health, long Covid, brain science, neurological disorders, mental health and genetics.
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