California positioned itself as a refuge for people seeking abortions after Roe v. Wade was overturned and voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution. Federal actions and anti-abortion litigation have produced tangible effects, including the loss of Medicaid funding that forced Planned Parenthood to close Northern California clinics. A Texas lawsuit alleges a California doctor mailed abortion-inducing drugs, invoking federal mail statutes and fetal personhood claims to seek wrongful-death liability. Providers who rely on state shield laws report growing nervousness as federal filings escalate and legal strategies aim to expand federal restrictions on medication abortion delivery.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, California politicians have attempted to position the state as a haven for people seeking an abortion - especially when, just months later that same year, voters successfully enshrined the right to an abortion in the state constitution. However, recent federal action and the anti-abortion movement's aggressive tactics have made palpable impacts in the state.
And California's state laws will be put to the test by a Texas man's lawsuit against a California doctor for allegedly providing his partner with abortion-inducing drugs. The lawyer behind the [Rodriguez] lawsuit argues that this statute also makes it illegal under federal law to mail abortion pills. So, the argument is that a California doctor has mailed pills to people in Texas, who have used the pills - and that, as a result, those abortions were, in fact, wrongful deaths. There's a fetal personhood argument in the mix, too. The game plan is obviously not just to target a doctor in California, but to get the federal courts to weigh in on the theory that there already is, in fact, a federal ban on mailing any abortion drug or any medical device used in an abortion.
Luthra: I just spoke to a provider earlier today, and she told me she is a shield law provider and is starting to feel nervous, for the first time in quite a while, that the federal filings in particular may be a sign that these threats are really amping up. And that there is a possibility that this model could be under a more serious th
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