BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (LifeSiteNews) – Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill announced that her office intends to sue California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul over their refusal to extradite doctors involved in sending abortion pills into the pro-life state.

Last year, Louisiana initiated legal action against Margaret Carpenter of New York and Remy Coeytaux of California, both for mailing abortion pills to Louisiana women over the last few years in violation of state law. Both states are currently under far-left, pro-abortion leadership that has refused to cooperate.

Now, Murrill plans to take Newsom and Hochul to court to compel their cooperation, calling it the only way to “address them protecting people who are openly committed to nullifying and violating our criminal laws in our state,” NOLA reported.

“They don’t agree with the laws of our state, and so they have this whole system set up to nullify our laws,” she added. “I think that is an affront to the full faith and credit that our state is afforded under the United States Constitution.”

“California and New York doctors have been hiding for too long behind so-called shield laws to save them from accountability for their criminal activity. Frankly, the very existence of ‘shield’ laws shows that they know what they are doing is both illegal and medical malpractice,” Louisiana Right to Life policy director Erica Inzina responded. “Otherwise, these sham laws would not be necessary. Regardless of one’s views on elective abortion, as consumers we should all be very skeptical of such sweeping efforts to shield wrongdoers from accountability at the expense of those harmed.”

Newsom took to social media to respond, telling Murrill, “Go f*** yourself. California will never help you criminalize healthcare.”

Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s most recent annual report revealed that, almost two years (as of April 2024) after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed direct abortion bans to be enforced for the first time in half a century, the nation’s largest abortion chain still operated almost 600 facilities nationwide, through which it committed 392,715 in the most recent reporting period. According to the Lozier Institute professor Michael New, that is a “record number of abortions for the organization and represents approximately 40 percent of the abortions performed in the United States.”

Louisiana has been aggressive in trying to prevent mail-order abortion pills from undermining its preborn protections. Last July, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law opening anyone who helps facilitate a chemical abortion to civil suits, subject to damages starting at $100,000.

Last fall, Louisiana also sued the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) over its removal of the requirement that abortion drugs be dispensed in person that drastically expanded their usage, encroached on state law, harming women in the process. But the Trump administration has asked the court to temporarily deny relief to Louisiana and abortion pill victim Rosalie Markezich, arguing they lacked legal standing and claiming a judgment in the case would interfere with the agency’s alleged ongoing review of the abortion pill.

The move reinforced questions currently swirling over when and how the White House will handle the problem. Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has taken a number of pro-life actions primarily in the area of taxpayer funding, but concern has brewed among pro-lifers ever since he declared (amid a broader effort to moderate the Republican Party’s pro-life plank) that Trump would not enforce a federal law banning abortion pills from being dispensed by mail, continuing a Biden administration policy that undermines state pro-life laws.

Pro-lifers were given hope in May that the White House’s position might change when U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (another formerly pro-abortion figure who moderated during his own presidential bid) promised a “complete review” of the medical risks of abortion pills, though no conclusions or timetable have since been announced. But some pro-life leaders have recently called for the firing of U.S. Food & Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary over reports he is intentionally “slow walking” the review. Makary has denied the report.