Kathy Hochul flatly refused to send an indicted New York abortion doctor to stand trial in Louisiana.
Now Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama have taken that refusal somewhere Hochul cannot simply ignore.
And a 1987 case about a pregnant mother run down in a parking lot is about to haunt her.
Hochul Refused to Extradite Dr. Margaret Carpenter to Louisiana
In January 2025, a West Baton Rouge Parish grand jury indicted New York doctor Margaret Carpenter and a Louisiana mother.
Prosecutors say Carpenter mailed abortion pills to the mother, who gave them to her teenage daughter.
According to Gov. Jeff Landry, the girl "was excited to have a baby and was planning a gender reveal party."
She ended up in the hospital, according to prosecutors.
Louisiana asked New York to extradite Carpenter.
"No doctor should go to jail for providing basic reproductive health care," Hochul answered.
Louisiana also indicted California doctor Remy Coeytaux, accused of mailing pills to a woman in St. Tammany Parish.
California refused too.
When the new lawsuits landed, Hochul doubled down: "No one should have to fear being punished for seeking or providing reproductive care."
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has a different view.
"Kathy Hochul and Gavin Newsom are not above the Constitution, and we will hold them accountable," she said.
Two Lawsuits Take Aim At Abortion Shield Laws and Mail-Order Pill Networks
On September 30, Murrill joined Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall in filing two lawsuits.
The first goes straight to the Supreme Court as an original action against New York, California and Maura Healey's Massachusetts.
All three have passed shield laws that block other states from holding their abortionists accountable.
The suit argues those laws trample the Constitution's Extradition Clause and its Full Faith and Credit Clause, and it asks the justices to strike them down.
The second suit, filed in federal court in Louisiana, targets 29 people and groups in the network sending abortion pills by mail, including people tied to Aid Access and Plan C, outfits Griffin has already hit with cease-and-desist letters.
According to the complaint, they advertise pills online, swap a doctor's exam for a short internet questionnaire, and keep their prescribers safely outside state lines.
Some allegedly tell women who suffer complications to show up at the emergency room and claim a miscarriage.
The complaint also flags possible violations of federal racketeering law, and the states plan to add RICO claims if the evidence confirms it.
"This is drug dealing and it's illegal," Murrill said.
An Ethics and Public Policy Center study found 10.93 percent of women suffer sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging or another serious adverse event within 45 days of taking mifepristone.
Texas Tried to Enforce Its Abortion Ruling and New York Slammed the Door
Carpenter also sent abortion pills to a woman in Collin County, Texas.
Her unborn child died, and she suffered serious complications, according to Attorney General Ken Paxton.
A Texas judge ordered Carpenter to pay $100,000 after she never bothered to show up in court.
Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck refused to file the judgment.
New York Attorney General Letitia James jumped in to defend the shield law, calling Texas' effort "this blatant overreach."
A New York judge then sided with the clerk.
A New York court will never overrule New York.
That is exactly why these three states went over its head.
The 1987 Supreme Court Extradition Ruling That Haunts Hochul
In January 1981, an air traffic controller named Ronald Calder drove into two people in a grocery store parking lot in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
One of them, Army Villalba, was eight months pregnant.
Witnesses said Calder backed his car over her body several times.
She died, and so did her unborn child.
Calder fled to Iowa, and Gov. Terry Branstad refused to send him back.
In Puerto Rico v. Branstad, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts can force a governor to carry out his duty under the Extradition Clause.
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the liberal icon himself, wrote that the old precedent letting governors refuse "is the product of another time."
Shield-law defenders will say Carpenter never fled Louisiana because she never set foot there.
That is why the suit also leans on Full Faith and Credit – the Constitution's command that every state respect the laws and court judgments of the others.
Branstad settled the bigger principle.
A governor's constitutional duties are not optional just because she dislikes the charges.
Hochul, Newsom and Healey have built and expanded entire legal systems around treating them that way.
They call it protecting care.
A Louisiana teenager who was planning a gender reveal party would call it something else.
Murrill, Griffin and Marshall are betting the Supreme Court sees it her way.
Sources:
- Jerry Cox, "Two New Lawsuits Target Blue States That Enable Illegal Mail-Order Abortions," LifeNews, October 1, 2026.
- Steven Ertelt, "Louisiana Sues New York, California and Massachusetts for Enabling Mail-Order Abortions," LifeNews, September 30, 2026.
- Elaine Mallon, "'Drug-Dealing' Network Shielded by Blue States Targeted in SCOTUS Challenge," Fox News, September 30, 2026.
- Emma Simmons and Allison Bruhl, "Louisiana Seeks Extradition of New York Doctor," KLFY, February 12, 2025.
- Texas Attorney General, "Attorney General Ken Paxton Takes Legal Action Against New York County Clerk," Texas Attorney General, July 28, 2025.
- Steven Ardary, "New York Attorney General Will Defend Shield Laws Against Texas Abortion Pill Case," Fox 4 News, September 9, 2025.
- Jamie Bryan Hall and Ryan T. Anderson, "The Abortion Pill Harms Women," Ethics and Public Policy Center, April 28, 2025.
- U.S. Supreme Court, "Puerto Rico v. Branstad," U.S. Supreme Court, June 23, 1987.
