‘Drug-dealing’ network shielded by blue states targeted in SCOTUS challenge

Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill is escalating her fight against abortion pills entering states that ban abortions through two lawsuits — one targeting the providers accused of distributing the drugs and another challenging the blue-state laws shielding them from prosecution.

Murrill, along with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, sued New York, California and Massachusetts at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, alleging their shield laws block cooperation with investigations into abortion-pill providers. 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 two lawsuits, filed Wednesday, are the latest move in a widening state-by-state fight over abortion. That conflict has grown since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down Roe v. Wade and gave elected officials the power to set abortion policy in their states.

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Murrill said the Supreme Court case targets the blue states’ legal protections that have thwarted Louisiana’s previous efforts to prosecute out-of-state doctors.

“These shield laws are very comprehensive,” Murrill said, arguing that California and New York prohibit officials from assisting other states seeking to enforce judgments stemming from abortion-related conduct.

Louisiana has already indicted New York physician Margaret Carpenter and California physician Remy Coeytaux over allegations that they prescribed abortion drugs that were sent into Louisiana. New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have refused to extradite the doctors.

The Supreme Court complaint cited Louisiana’s unsuccessful effort to extradite Carpenter, saying Hochul declared there was “no way in hell” she would comply with Louisiana’s request. The filing said New York later strengthened its shield law, including by allowing prescribers of abortion drugs to keep their names off prescription labels.

Newsom similarly rejected Louisiana’s request to extradite Coeytaux in January, saying California would not help other states punish doctors for providing abortion access that is legal in California.

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When Murrill vowed to sue, Newsom responded on X telling her to “Go f— yourself. California will never help you criminalize healthcare.”

“I think that if I sent guns into their states illegally, they would certainly try to come after me,” Murrill 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,” she continued.

The second lawsuit directly targets what Murrill calls the “pill pipeline.”

The 100-page complaint alleges providers used online questionnaires to obtain information from customers before abortion drugs were mailed into states where their distribution is prohibited. The states allege some organizations openly acknowledged that their conduct violated those states’ laws while relying on shield laws to protect themselves from legal consequences.

Murrill said investigators have conducted controlled purchases and received pills packaged in small bags, sometimes in quantities she said exceeded what would ordinarily be prescribed.

“We’ve seen it for ourselves,” Murrill said. “There’s no supervision, there’s no healthcare, there’s no communication whatsoever. It’s all done online.”

Murrill argued that the system can allow people other than pregnant women to obtain the drugs, pointing to cases Louisiana authorities said involved women being pressured or deceived into taking abortion medication.

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“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 told Fox News Digital. “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.”

The attorney general also said Louisiana wants more help from the Trump administration.

“Obviously we think the FDA could be doing more and we’ve asked them to do that,” Murrill said.

Louisiana has separately challenged federal rules that eliminated an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser backed the litigation, accusing blue states of using their laws “to obstruct justice” and urging the Justice Department to settle Louisiana’s separate FDA litigation.

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“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.

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Fox News Digital reached out to New York, California and Massachusetts’ governors’ offices for comment.