(LifeSiteNews) — Sixteen Republican state attorneys general have signed a letter to the leaders of Congress demanding federal action to stop state “shield laws” that help abortionists facilitate illegal abortions across state lines.
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions, but the abortion lobby continues to work feverishly preserve “access” through a variety of means, most prominently deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, enabling the abortion industry to shift much of its business focus from surgical abortions to mailing abortion pills into states where abortion is illegal, to be taken in the privacy of one’s home with no medical oversight.
Such abortions are effectively impossible to prevent without preventing the pills from being mailed out in the first place. Yet several pro-abortion states have enacted “shield laws” forbidding cooperation with out-of-state law enforcement attempting to enforce pro-life laws. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, “22 states and the District of Columbia have some level of shield law protection related to reproductive health or gender-affirming care,” eight of which “extend protections to telehealth provision.”
In response to this problem, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin led 15 of his counterparts in a July 29 letter to the leaders of both parties in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, saying that “[t]hese laws are blatant attempts to interfere with States’ ability to enforce criminal laws within their borders and disrupt our constitutional structure. Therefore, we are asking Congress to assess the constitutional authority it may have to preempt shield laws.”
“By encouraging medical professionals in pro-abortion states to violate pro-life States’ abortion laws, shield laws are antithetical to the spirit of federalism and the Dobbs decision by not allowing each State to regulate abortion as it sees fit,” the letter states.
“Shield laws also raise serious constitutional concerns. For example, they violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution because they do not give ‘full faith and credit’ to the judicial proceedings occurring in other States. U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1,” it continues. “When New York or California refuses to respect a criminal prosecution or a civil judgment against an individual who is accused of violating the abortion laws of another State, they are refusing to give full faith and credit to that State’s judicial proceedings. Similarly, shield laws could run afoul of the Extradition Clause of the Constitution.”
The issue illustrates one of the practical difficulties inherent in leaving abortion policy to individual states.
President Donald Trump has supported the pro-life cause during this term in several ways, mostly in cutting taxpayer funding to the abortion industry, but during the 2024 presidential election cycle, he sparked consternation among pro-life voters by leading the charge to remove the Republican Party’s longstanding support for a national abortion ban from the party platform, arguing that letting individual states decide would be a more peaceable resolution to the divisive issue.
Pro-life critics stressed that the so-called “federalist” solution was wrong on principle, as preborn babies have an unalienable right to life that the Fourteenth Amendment charges Congress with giving equal protection, and that, as a practical matter, it would be unsustainable because the abortion lobby would never be content with only some states being “pro-choice.”
The Trump administration could also resolve much of the AGs’ concerns by rescinding a Biden administration directive that ended enforcement of a federal law prohibiting abortion pills from being dispensed by mail. Trump said on the campaign trail that he would not do so, but Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. later promised a “complete review” of the health risks of abortion pills, giving pro-lifers hope. So far, no action has been taken.
