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CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 09:00 am
State attorneys general across the country are banding together to oppose “abortion shield laws” that they say enable abortionists to bypass pro-life state laws.
A July 29 letter to Congress signed by 16 Republican attorneys general described the shield laws as “blatant attempts to interfere with states’ ability to enforce criminal laws within their borders.”
At least 18 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted abortion shield laws, which vary in kind but are all designed to protect abortionists against pro-life laws in other states. Generally, states with abortion shield laws will refuse to extradite abortionists and won’t enforce judgments or penalties from another state.
Recently, abortion shield laws have clashed with pro-life laws that protect unborn children from chemical abortions in Texas, where a judge ordered a New York abortion provider to stop prescribing abortion pills to Texas residents. Because of New York’s shield laws, the abortion provider dodged the lawsuit and the $100,000 fine.
Addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the letter, signed by attorneys general of Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and other pro-life states, said that shield laws “raise serious constitutional concerns.”
In the letter, the attorneys general noted that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion legislation to the states, “different states passed laws purporting to ‘shield’ abortion providers from liability and prosecution for performing or aiding in abortions in other states.”
“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 read.
Kelsey Pritchard, political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, praised the signees for “spreading awareness on unconstitutional shield laws.”
“These laws violate the state sovereignty of the 22 states that protect life at 12 weeks or sooner by protecting abortion pill mills over women and girls in this country,” Pritchard told CNA. “Blue states have no right to shield abortion drug distributors when they break the laws, harm women, and kill unborn children in pro-life states.”
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said his state and others “have faced a problem of abortion pills such as mifepristone, which are taken to induce chemical abortions, being shipped into our state illegally.”
“The law is very clear on this issue, and regardless of how one feels about the law, it is vital that the law be upheld,” Griffin said in a post on X.
Kate Quiñones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a fellow of the College Fix. She has been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Denver Catholic Register, and CatholicVote, and she graduated from Hillsdale College. She lives in Colorado with her husband.
