State v. state battles over abortion laws are coming to a head – and likely will end up at the Supreme Court

Rather than take judges out of the national debate over abortion, as the 2022 Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe V. Wade promised to do, that ruling has unleashed a new wave of legal questions – including how to settle disputes between the states about whether their abortion laws can be applied outside their borders.

Rather than take judges out of the national debate over abortion, as the 2022 Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe V. Wade promised to do, that ruling has unleashed a new wave of legal questions – including how to settle disputes between the states about whether their abortion laws can be applied outside their borders. Such a conflict could put abortion back at the high court’s doorstep sooner than the justices may like. Anti-abortion activists and aligned state and local officials are plotting cases that would force such a confrontation. President Donald Trump’s newly confirmed attorney general said last week she’d “love to work” with the local prosecutor behind one such case. That case, perhaps the most prominent example, is the criminal charges Louisiana prosecutors recently brought against a New York doctor accused of unlawfully prescribing abortion pills that were used in the state. A warrant is now out for the doctor’s arrest. That indictment comes on the heels of civil proceedings Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed late last year against the same New York doctor, making similar allegations. Top New York state officials, citing the state’s so-called shield law, have already vowed that they will not cooperate with the proceedings against the doctor.