Health Law
Are doctors in shield-law states at risk for mailing abortion pills to anti-abortion jurisdictions?
David Cohen, a professor at the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, called the shield laws “a huge breakthrough” for women needing abortions in anti-abortions states. Image from Shutterstock.
Doctors in states with telemedicine shield laws are now able to ship abortion pills to women in anti-abortion jurisdictions as a result of a new procedure adopted by a European supplier.
The supplier is Aid Access, which previously permitted only Europe-based doctors to prescribe the medicine for women in states that ban abortions, the Washington Post reports.
Aid Access switched course in mid-June, which means that women seeking abortion pills in anti-abortion states can now get the drugs much faster through U.S.-based doctors.
The telemedicine shield laws permit doctors in states where abortion is legal to prescribe and mail abortion medication directly to women in anti-abortion states. New York’s law, for instance, bans state and local employees form cooperating with or providing information to any out-of-state agency regarding health activity that is legal in New York.
David Cohen, a professor at the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, called the shield laws “a huge breakthrough” for women needing abortions in anti-abortions states.
“Providers are protected in many ways as long as they remain in the state with the shield law,” Cohen told the Washington Post.
But some lawyers say doctors could be at risk. One issue is whether shield-law states could block anti-abortion states from extraditing people charged with abortion crimes.
Julie F. Kay, legal director of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine Access, said traditionally, people who commit a crime in one state can be extradited if they flee to another state.
“But no one is fleeing here,” Kay said.
The extradition issue, the Washington Post said, “could wind up in a gray area ultimately resolved by the courts.”
