Women Suffer, Babies Die as Gavin Newsom Defies the Constitution

A nightmare is unfolding right before our eyes: Radical shield laws are putting women’s lives at risk, and governors are thumbing their noses at the Constitution.

At the ACLJ, we’re fighting for life, for justice, and for the Constitution, and these latest outrages prove why we can’t wait another day for Congress to act. Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to deny Louisiana’s lawful extradition request represents a direct challenge to the rule of law that binds our nation together and threatens our constitutional order.

Nearly four years ago, we celebrated a massive victory for life in this country, the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But, tempering our celebration, we cautioned:

While Dobbs is a major, historic victory for law and life, the pro-life movement still has an immense task ahead of it. States now may restrict abortion. Whether they do so or not is a state-by-state struggle. The ACLJ stands ready to offer its expertise to guide any such efforts in defense of human life.

We knew the abortion lobby would stop at nothing. Beyond merely enshrining abortion as a “right” or funding abortion on demand, the radical Left is fueling a full-on Constitutional crisis.

What Are “Shield” Laws?

Last summer, 16 Attorneys General pleaded with Congress that “shield” laws effectively invited abortionists to violate their states’ laws, harm their citizens, and all without consequence. Rather than help bring these irresponsible practitioners to justice, these states are harboring them, refusing to comply with attempts to extradite.

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This is not mere speculation; we have already seen tragic stories fueled by access to deadly abortion pills. Just this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom flat-out refused to extradite a California abortionist accused of illegally mailing deadly abortion drugs to a woman in Louisiana, where abortion pills are illegal. The victim, Rosalie Markezich, was coerced by her boyfriend into ordering mifepristone via mail. She took the pills, ending her unborn child’s life in a traumatic chemical abortion that left her haunted by grief and emotional devastation. Louisiana issued a criminal warrant. But Newsom slammed the door shut, declaring: “Louisiana’s request is denied. . . . 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.”

Such extradition refusals are not isolated. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul refused a similar request last year, under the state’s shield law. This “shield” is designed to block cooperation with other states, refusing subpoenas, extraditions, and enforcement when their actions violate pro-life laws elsewhere. New York proudly positions itself as a “champion” of abortion access, and they’re not alone. States beholden to the abortion lobby across the country are passing these dangerous and deadly laws. These laws create a safe haven for out-of-state pill shipments that bypass medical safeguards, leaving women to suffer unsupervised complications like severe bleeding, infections, and worse, while innocent babies are poisoned in the womb.

Why Congress Must Act NOW

These cases highlight a growing problem in America. Easy access to these abortion pills is being abused, often by abusive and coercive friends and relatives. But how are these dangerous abortion pills so easily acquired? The simple answer is that shield laws are encouraging abortionists in their states to mail abortion pills to anyone in any state with precious little regulation, oversight, or care. Louisiana has seen how dangerous this is, with people easily stealing others’ information to fraudulently acquire these drugs with little effort.

These shield laws, propped up by executive orders and statutes, are shielding criminals who traffic chemical abortion pills across state lines, causing real harm without consequence. Post-Dobbs, states have the sovereign right to regulate medicine, protect public health, and defend morality within their borders. Pro-life states like Louisiana, Texas, and others are exercising that authority to ban these barbaric practices and safeguard mothers and children. But shield laws override it all, creating a “legal fiction” where a doctor in California or New York can poison a baby in Louisiana or Missouri with impunity.

This directly assaults the Constitution we hold dear:

• The Full Faith and Credit Clause (Article IV, Section 1) demands that states honor each other’s public acts, records, and judicial proceedings. Shield laws ignore this, refusing to recognize pro-life judgments, subpoenas, or warrants – turning states into warring factions instead of a united nation.
• The Extradition Clause (Article IV, Section 2) requires handing over fugitives charged with crimes in one state. The Supreme Court has long held that remote crimes – like mailing deadly drugs or internet-enabled harm – are enforceable, even without physical presence. Yet governors like Newsom and Hochul are defying this, letting alleged offenders hide behind state lines while victims cry for justice.

Newsom cannot simply declare that he disagrees with Louisiana’s laws and therefore will not honor California’s constitutional obligations. If governors could pick and choose which constitutional requirements to follow based on their policy preferences, our entire federal system would collapse. The result would be chaos – each state becoming an island unto itself, with the Constitution reduced to mere suggestions.

In contrast, the Supreme Court has emphasized that the Constitution was designed

to alter the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore obligations created under the laws or by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation throughout which a remedy upon a just obligation might be demanded as of right, irrespective of the state of its origin.

When California refuses to respect a criminal prosecution of another state, they are threatening that federalist structure.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. ACLJ attorneys and legal scholars around the pro-life movement have identified this as one of the next major fights for life. Federalism means that pro-life states can regulate the practice of medicine within their borders to protect their citizens. Federalism cannot be stretched into a caricature of itself, where radical states provide asylum for abortionists injuring and poisoning Americans in sister states. These laws don’t promote federalism; they shred it, inviting chaos, endangering women, and enabling the abortion industry’s deadly interstate pipeline.

The Founders understood that states would have different laws and that people might flee across state lines to avoid prosecution. They ensured that the Constitution would require cooperation between states, regardless of their policy differences. Protecting our federalist system determines whether we remain a nation governed by the Constitution or devolve into a collection of independent sovereigns who cooperate only when convenient.

At the ACLJ, we’re on the front lines defending the voiceless – the unborn babies, the injured mothers, the states fighting to protect their citizens. Newsom’s actions are a dangerous attack on the constitutional framework that holds our federal republic together.

LifeNews Note: Liam R. Harrell is Associate Counsel at the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) Washington, D.C., office.

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