Doctors such as Margaret Carpenter of New York have leveraged shield laws to mail chemical abortion drugs to women in states where the drugs are now illegal. Shield laws have been subverted since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and could expand to protect doctors mailing other dangerous drugs, such as for assisted suicide.
By prescribing chemical abortion drugs to women in states where providers are not licensed, the doctors are practicing outside the scope of their licensure. They violate longstanding medical ethics as well as the sovereignty of pro-life states.
New shield laws, originally enacted to protect journalists, now protect abortionists from criminal and often civil liability by prohibiting state law enforcement and other officials from assisting in investigations related to the abortion restrictions of another state. Arrests, extradition, and the sharing of evidence are all off the table when it comes to protecting abortion.
Currently, 22 states and D.C. have shield laws protecting doctors providing abortion to women from other states, with eight of those states including explicit mail-order protections.
Shield Laws for Assisted Suicide, ‘Transgender’ Surgeries
The United States is a patchwork of other bioethical laws. While the American Medical Association has largely opposed physician-assisted suicide, more states are legalizing the practice within their state. The practice is currently legal in 11 states and Washington, D.C. In New York, the euphemistic “Medical Aid in Dying Act” still sits on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk.
Patients seeking assisted suicide often “doctor shop” by traveling out of state to find a provider willing to prescribe lethal drugs. Abortion shield laws could serve as a model to protect such doctors willing to prescribe assisted-suicide kits across states lines. Individuals facing terminal illness — or abusive family members, partners, and other caretakers — would be only an envelope away from accessing these deadly drugs.
Similar concerns surround legal restrictions on medical marijuana and cross-sex hormones. Potential shield laws for doctors who enable chemical castration and other “transgender” medical interventions pose a serious threat to parental involvement laws.
While there are not yet shield laws protecting doctors wishing to provide assisted-suicide kits or medical marijuana to out-of-state patients, currently 18 states and D.C. have already begun protecting “gender-affirming care” through legislation or executive order.
Many of these states include broad protections “regardless of patient location,” though some intentionally do not include language specific to mail-order or telehealth provision of hormones, daring this broad-reaching language to be challenged in its applicability.
California Protects Abortion Pill Mailers
California has taken the toxic step of protecting their abortion providers by permitting them to mail abortion pills with only a minimum of identifying information, omitting the name of the patient, prescriber, and pharmacist. The goal is to prevent law enforcement and parties with legal standing from filing a lawsuit against abortionist doctors.
Should this approach be applied beyond abortion, providers will evade responsibility for causing harm, despite their solemn oath to heal. Doctors will be given full license to practice as their political affiliations and personal ethics dictate, rather than being guided by patient-centered standard care practices.
State against State
Like my home state of Virginia, many states are shifting under a “Blue Wave” and will doubtlessly pass abortion shield laws similar to California’s or New York’s under their newly expanded Democratic leadership. Democrats attempted to advance similar legislation during the 2024 Virginia legislative session that would have prohibited the board of medicine from taking disciplinary action against doctors providing abortion, but Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed the bill. Now Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger is ready to seize the state capital with her pro-abortion ideology.
Short of President Donald Trump and his Department of Justice acknowledging that mail-order abortion violates the Comstock Act’s explicit restriction on mailing items “intended for producing abortion,” the war between states with shield laws and those wishing to simply uphold their laws protecting women from abortion will continue to rage on.
Opponents of these abortion shield laws, including the attorneys general of Texas and Louisiana, have attempted to use the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution to argue each state must respect “the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” Thus far, left-leaning judges have rebuffed attempts to explore the application of this clause, but Texas will hopefully appeal the most recent dismissal of their case.
While pro-life states battle to enforce their laws in courts, professional medical organizations and licensing boards must defend the integrity of medical practice. Strong oversight of providers is needed to maintain public trust in medical institutions — a trust that is already fading.
Abortion shield laws must be unanimously opposed. They set a dangerous legal precedent for the future of medicine. There will always be a doctor willing to cross the line, and we must ensure the lines we draw are respected in law and medicine.
Gavin Oxley is the media relations manager for Americans United for Life. Follow him on X @realgavinoxley.
