Louisiana could be heading for a legal battle with New York over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s refusal to indict a doctor who prescribed abortion medication to a woman in the southern state. If Louisiana’s attorney general opts to sue, some of the state’s Republican lawmakers say they’ll stand behind her.
“You don’t want to send Louisiana state troopers up there to face off with New York state troopers,” Rep. Clay Higgins told NOTUS. “You gotta settle this in court. And I think that’s the appropriate next step.”
The case against New York resident Dr. Margaret Carpenter is a major test of how conflicting abortion laws will play out since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Now courts may have to decide which law takes precedence, and lawmakers from both parties are taking sides.
“It’s a battle of governors,” Higgins said.
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After Hochul posted a video refusing to sign the extradition request, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry hit back on X.
“So you’re telling me [Gov. Hochul] is protecting criminals over victims?!” Landry wrote. “And they wonder why people and businesses are fleeing the state.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill hasn’t said definitively what she will do. But she said she’s considering suing Hochul over her decision not to extradite Carpenter, who runs a telehealth practice that authorities allege prescribed abortion pills over the internet to a Louisiana mother who planned to give them to her minor daughter.
“I’m looking at that, I think it very well could happen,” Murrill said on a local NBC station on Sunday of a lawsuit. But, she added, “I’m not in a hurry to sue the governor of New York.”
Murrill said there are other states that would agree to extradite Carpenter if she travels to them.
The Louisiana attorney general’s office declined to comment beyond Murrill’s TV appearance on Sunday.
Sen. Bill Cassidy didn’t get into specifics about what he wants to see in the case, saying he’s not a lawyer. But he said he trusts Murrill in whatever action she takes.
“One thing I will say is that I’ve got great faith in our attorney general, a great faith, and would trust what decisions she makes,” Cassidy told NOTUS.
Sen. John Kennedy declined to comment on the case, saying he hadn’t read the case.
A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson said he doesn’t have a comment because it’s a state issue. The offices of Republican Reps. Steve Scalise and Julia Letlow did not respond to a request for comment.
One of Louisiana’s Democratic House members sided with the New York governor. Hochul’s office declined to comment on a hypothetical lawsuit, but directed NOTUS to her comments at a Planned Parenthood event in Albany, New York, on Wednesday.
“Imagine the desperation of women all across this country,” Hochul said at the event. “They turn to our doctors here in this safe haven of New York and then, in return, I get served with papers to extradite this individual, this brave doctor, to the state of Louisiana? No, and hell no! That is never happening.”
Rep. Troy Carter told NOTUS that “New York laws make it very clear that she did absolutely nothing wrong,” referring to Carpenter.
“You want to enforce something you believe to be the law in Louisiana against a doctor and a duly elected governor of another state?” he said. “Dangerous precedent, I think.”
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Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and Verite News.
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