Louisiana Signs Extradition Order for New York Abortion Provider
2.12.25
Click to skip ahead: In Criminalizing Care, Louisiana wants to extradite a New York abortion provider. New York says, fuck you.
In the Courts, South Carolina doctors say the state’s abortion ban forces them to violate their consciences.
In the States, news from North Dakota and Oklahoma.
In the Nation, a judge ordered the Trump administration to restore deleted webpages and documents to the CDC and other government agency sites.
Anti-Abortion Strategy reminds folks how Republicans try to hide the fact that Americans are overwhelmingly pro-choice.
Criminalizing Care
This wasn’t unexpected, but it still turned my stomach: Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill signed an extradition order today for New York abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter. What’s more, Murrill says that Dr. Carpenter could be extradited from other Republican-led states if she leaves New York.
A quick refresher: Carpenter was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury for mailing abortion medication to a teenager in the state who ended her pregnancy. What’s most important to know is that Carpenter did nothing illegal: New York is a shield state that protects abortion providers and allows them to mail abortion medication without fear of prosecution. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says “there’s no way in hell” she’d extradite Carpenter.
Despite these protections, conservatives are determined to go after abortion providers in pro-choice states—hoping to drag the issue to the Supreme Court. When Louisiana first brought these charges, I guessed that Republican governors were racing to find a case they believed could withstand legal scrutiny and avoid public backlash. Murrill just happened to get there first. (My bet? The billionaire-funded Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) is behind this.)
The other major piece of this story is how Republicans are trying to frame it—not as an attack on abortion, but as a case of ‘coercion.’ Nearly every GOP official involved has latched onto the word, insisting this has “nothing to do with reproductive health care.” Why? Because abortion rights are popular, and they know it. If they can make this about a mother allegedly forcing her teen to have an abortion, they think they can sidestep public outrage. Remember, anti-abortion activists identified “coercion” back in 2023 as the GOP’s most promising talking point, because, as they put it, “no one is openly in favor of coerced abortions.”
But here’s the problem with that narrative: as Louisiana Illuminator reporter Lorena O’Neil noted, prosecutors didn’t actually charge the teen’s mother with coercion. This isn’t about evidence—it’s about spin.
O’Neil also reported today that it’s possible Carpenter could be arrested if she travels to a Republican-led state. Murrill warned that the doctor “needs to be careful with her travel plans,” and when asked if she was counting on Republican governors to help arrest Carpenter, her spokesperson dodged, pointing to this statement:
“New York officials, including the governor, are not at liberty to ignore interstate compacts and laws regarding extradition. The doctor could be arrested in other places. If New York won’t cooperate, there are other states that will.”
Please consider supporting Dr. Carpenter by donating to her organization, the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, here. Read below to find out more about the charges against Carpenter and a Louisiana mom:
In the Courts
Keep your eye on this case out of South Carolina, where doctors are challenging the state’s abortion ban on religious and moral grounds. It’s a sharp reversal from the usual conscience-based lawsuits, which typically involve health care providers fighting for the right not to provide abortion care.
This time, the plaintiff physicians “have long held sincere religious and conscientious beliefs commanding them to respect the inherent worth of every person, help people in critical need, and place others before themselves.”
South Carolina’s ban, they say, forces them to violate those principles by denying or delaying critical abortion care for “very ill, grieving, or traumatized patients.” The result? A law that “eviscerates Plaintiffs’ core religious convictions and causes them severe emotional distress.”
The challenge also exposes the cruelty of the ban and its so-called ‘exceptions.’ Rape victims, for example, must have their attack reported to the local sheriff. From the complaint:
“In a rare instance in which a rape survivor was willing to report the rape to law enforcement, the police insisted on coming to her home to complete the report. The experience was so degrading that the patient permanently left South Carolina.”
I mean really, who could blame her?
Sofia Resnick at States Newsroom has a great write-up with more details, and law professor Mary Ziegler wrote about the case at Slate. I’ll definitely be watching out for this one.
Don’t forget: The ‘conscience’ case isn’t the only challenge to South Carolina’s abortion ban. I told you yesterday about Planned Parenthood’s suit, which is seeking to change the prohibition on abortion from about 6 weeks to 9 weeks.
In the States
Good-ish news out of North Dakota: A bill that would have punished abortion patients as murderers failed in the state House today. Still, bill sponsor Rep. Lori VanWinkle insisted, “Murder is murder for everybody and it should be for anybody.”
A few things to keep in mind: House Bill 1373 failed 77-16—which isn’t nothing! Sixteen lawmakers were fully on board with throwing women in prison for having an abortion. It also appears that it wasn’t the murder charges that gave legislators pause, but the potential impact on IVF access.
Even that wasn’t enough to deter VanWinkle, who delivered one of the nastiest quotes I’ve seen in a while:
“Perhaps women are going to the IVF clinics because judgment is on their womb and God has effectively closed their womb because we are murdering massive amounts of children in our nation. And if we would repent and do the right thing, maybe those people would actually get pregnant.”
Did you scream? I screamed.
A reminder: North Dakota was one of six states where Republicans proposed legislation to classify abortion as homicide. And while these bills aren’t expected to pass (for now) that’s not really the point. Conservatives’ goal is normalization. Every time they introduce one of these bills, lawmakers are pushing the Overton window a little further—making voters more accustomed to the idea. And despite claims that the legislators who bring forward these bills are extremist outliers, we’re seeing more of them every single day.
Want to know how to recognize efforts to punish abortion patients? Look for the term ‘equal protection.’ That’s the phrase anti-abortion politicians use to make throwing women in prison sound downright progressive.
Take Texas House Bill 2197, which would—you guessed it—punish abortion patients as murderers. When defending his legislation this week, Rep. Brent Money said:
“As a pro-life Christian, I believe that life begins at conception and that every life is entitled to equal protection under the law.”
There it is!
Over at The Oklahoman, gynecologist Dr. Jennifer Nelson writes that Oklahoma Republicans have “gone too far” with the state’s abortion ban:
“They have forced doctors and hospitals to deny women lifesaving medical care for miscarriages and other pregnancy complications. Abortion bans can interfere with cancer treatment and can cause long-term harm to women’s economic security and health. The state abortion ban has doctors and nurses living in fear of prosecution, forced to call a lawyer to understand when they can treat a patient who is bleeding to death. I ask these politicians, if someone you love needed this care, would you want doctors to have to wait before providing the necessary and urgent care?”
Whew.
In the Nation
Some rare good news! A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore deleted webpages and documents at the CDC, HHS, and other government agencies. As you know, the Republican White House has been scrubbing websites of information on sexual health, reproductive rights, LGBTQ issues, racism, and more.
The move is part of a broad movement by the Trump administration to get rid of any language or mentions of ‘gender’ and issues Republicans have labeled ‘DEI.’ (Essentially anything that has to do with someone who isn’t a white, straight guy.)
But a judge ruled yesterday that government agencies need to bring the deleted pages back. U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote In his opinion, "It bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants' actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare.”
And Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a public health professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told NPR just how dangerous the Trump administration’s actions were:
"Some of these websites provided actual recommendations on how to take care of patients. These are not just like books on the shelf. These are like heavily thumbed through manuals that people really need."
I meant, truly, there was nothing more alarming than seeing this language on a deleted CDC page about sexual violence prevention:
While I’m grateful for the judge’s ruling, I don’t trust that the Trump administration will restore documents and webpages to their original form. That’s why Abortion, Every Day has been collecting the deleted and ‘modified’ pages at CDCGuidelines.com.
If you have a document you’ve saved or if there’s something vital you think we should look for to download, please email tips@abortioneveryday.com.
Quick hits:
In an interview with the Yellowhammer Fund, Rewire reminds readers that “The Future of the Abortion Fight Is Black Women.”
States Newsroom has more on the legislative push to mandate anti-abortion videos in public school classrooms.
Mother Jones on how the Musk-Trump “war on government” will impact abortion rights.
Anti-Abortion Strategy
This is a tactic I’ve pointed out before, but it’s always worth repeating: Republicans know that Americans are overwhelmingly pro-choice and strongly oppose abortion bans. Instead of admitting as much, they’ve come up with a sneaky way of pretending that voters are actually ‘pro-life’—see if you can spot the strategy in this op-ed from Tennessee Rep. Gino Bulso:
“Last November, the people of Tennessee overwhelmingly made their views known when more than 1.85 million voters cast their ballots for pro-life state representative candidates compared to roughly 870,000 for pro-choice candidates.”
That’s right: If Republicans win elections, that must mean voters support abortion bans—never mind that Republican-led states are rife with voter suppression and gerrymandering. And they’ll just ignore the polling that shows just how pro-choice Americans really are—even in red states.
In fact, a 2023 Tennessee poll found that the vast majority of voters want to do away with the state’s ban; even 65% of Republican voters in the state want to see the ban made less harsh! (As did 56% of those who identified as conservatives, and 54% who identified as Evangelical.)
“…bill sponsor Rep. Lori VanWinkle insisted, ‘Murder is murder for everybody and it should be for anybody.’” So will Rep. Lori Winkler and the Attorney General and any state legislator who has voted to ban all abortions be charged with conspiracy to commit murder every time a woman dies because medical care has been deliberately withheld? If care could be provided but was not because of state law and the patient died all those people are complicit in that death and, hey, “murder is murder for everybody and should be for anybody”. Seems unequivocal to me.
Lori VanWinkle needs to feel thr mother of all bitchslaps delivered to her smirking face- over and over and over