In The consequences of the decision of the United States Supreme Court Roe c. Wade in 2022,, Many states have decided to protect the right to abortion, and several have turned to a new tool to do so: laws on abortion armor.
The laws are intended to preserve access to abortion by protecting several classes of people – suppliers of an abortion. Now these laws are tested by two legal challenges in Texas and Louisiana, both involving a doctor from New York.
So what exactly are the laws on the shield, and what does the future hold back? Time has spoken to experts to discover it.
What are the laws on the abortion shield?
The lawsuing laws of abortion are “new protections” promulgated in 18 states and Washington, DC, explains Lizzy Hinkley, main legislative lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which has contributed to writing some of these laws. The laws provide protections to doctors providing drugs or clinical abortions in the state of the shield, according to Rachel Rebouché, Doyen and professor at the University Beasley School of Law temple. Each law is different, therefore the protections offered by each state vary, but may include the shield state refusing to comply with the extradition order of another state for a doctor who has provided thoroughness care that are legally protected in the state of the shield, refusing to participate in another the state survey on the supplier and refusing to penalize the supplier by professional discipline.
Connecticut was the first state to adopt a law on the abortion shield in May 2022, in anticipation of the cancellation of the Supreme Court of Deer. “What motivated us is that there will be an intense interstate conflict,” explains Rebouchdé, who worked with colleagues to write the language of the state shield law.
“It’s a new territory,” says Hinkley. “Shield laws were a tool that states used in response to a change in the way abortion rights are treated in the country. When there was still a federal right protected to abortion, the states should not worry about whether a supplier of their condition was going to be criminalized to provide abortion care to a patient or a resident of another State because states could not criminalize this care. There was a right to abortion; There were railings that were protected by the federal government. »»
Of the 18 states that have protection laws, eight of them – including New York – include protections for doctors who provide telemedicine abortion to patients from other states, according to Rebouché. About 63% of all abortions in the American health system in 2023 were drug abortions, but anti-abortion activists and legislators tried to restrict access to pills. After the decision of the Supreme Court in Dobbs c. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationThe Biden administration has made efforts to increase access to abortion pills by allowing them to be prescribed by Télésanté and received by mail, but defenders of reproduction rights are concerned with the fact that the Trump administration withdraw these efforts. Hinkley says that telemedicine abortion has been “a rescue buoy” for many people who live in states who have prohibited or restricted abortion.
Find out more: How the Biden administration protected access to an abortion pill – and what Trump could do then
What are the current legal challenges to protect laws?
Texas, which has prohibited abortion in almost all situations, filed a civil complaint against Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, based in New York, for having pretended, via telemedicine, abortion pills to a woman of 20 years in Texas. Texas alleges that the woman has been hospitalized for complications. On February 13, a Texas judge ordered Carpenter to stop prescribing abortion pills for Texas residents and paying a fine of more than $ 100,000. Carpenter and his lawyers did not respond to the trial, given the New York shield law which prohibits cooperation with the surveys of other states on providers.
Louisiana, which also has an almost total ban on abortion, accused the carpenter of a prescription crime, allegedly, via telemedicine, abortion pills to a pregnant minor. Louisiana officials claim that the patient was taken to hospital after ingesting the pills because she lived a medical emergency. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on February 13 that she would not extract Carpenter in Louisiana – “not now” – by the New York Shield Act. Louisiana cannot constitute constitutionally the carpenter unless it is physically present in the state for an appearance before the court, according to Rebouché.
Affairs represent the first time that shield laws are tested in court. “I think they indicate what we can expect to go ahead for intense interstate conflicts,” said rebuilt about the two cases. “I don’t think it’s surprising; I think this is where we were always going to land, given that Dobbs Abortion returned to the State and a third of the country prohibits the abortion of the first moments of pregnancy or before six weeks, just as many states have codified the rights to abortion in their constitutions and their laws of the state . »»
Find out more: Here are the main Trump movements affecting access to reproductive health care
What does the future contain the shield laws?
Because New York will not cooperate with Texas and Louisiana, the future of the two cases is a bit clear.
“Those [cases] Raise truly deep constitutional structural issues about interstate relationships, ”explains Rebouché. “They find themselves ending up in the Supreme Court, because there is a long and complicated of the mediation of disputes between states when they do not agree on public policy, and that’s where we are now . “
Hinkley says that the intention of legal challenges is to scare doctors who provide abortion care, but that shield laws work to give access to people across the country. She adds that the laws “are downright in the power of the states of implementation” and are constitutional.
“I am sure there will be continuous challenges to the laws on the shield,” says Hinkley, “but I can say with certainty that [shield laws] have been written with good care and with these legal challenges in mind, and they stand on solid ground, both in what states are allowed to do, as well as what they are not allowed to TO DO. »»
