IThe decision of the Supreme Court in the United States Turn Ro against a valley In 2022and Many countries have moved to protect the right to abortion, and many of them have turned into a new tool to do so: the laws of the abortion shield.
Laws aim to maintain access to abortion by protecting multiple groups of people – abortion who are practiced in states where abortion is legal, as well as patients and people who help them reach abortion – from civil and criminal measures taken by countries with prohibitions or restrictions Imposed on miscarriage. Now, these laws are tested through two legal challenges in Texas and Louisiana, both of which include a New York doctor.
So what exactly what are the laws of the shield, and what does the future carry them? Time spoke with experts to find out.
What are the laws of abortion?
Lizi Henkli, the first legislative adviser of the state says in Reproductive Rights CenterWhich helped formulate some of these laws. Laws provide protection for doctors who provide medicines or miscarriages inside the fast in the state of the shield, according to Rachel Rebesh, Dean and Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Temple. Each different law, therefore the protection provided by each state differs, but the shield country can include a rejection of compliance with the order to hand over the other country to a generous health care of a law protected by law in the case of the shield, and he refused to participate in others to achieve the state in the provider, and refused to punish the provider through discipline Professional.
Connecticut was the first case Pass The abortion shield law, in May 2022, in anticipation of the capture of the Supreme Court Row. “What we were driven by is, there will be a conflict between the states,” says Ribiushi, who worked with his colleagues to formulate the language of the state shield law.
“This is a new area,” says Hinkley. “The laws of the shield were a tool used by countries in response to a change in how to treat abortion rights in the country. When there was still a federal protected right to miscarriage, it was not necessary for states to be concerned whether a provider in his mandate would be criminalized to provide abortion care for a patient or a resident In another state, the countries could not criminalize this care.
Among the 18 states that have a shield laws, eight of which – including New York – in the field of protection for doctors who provide abortion pills through remote medicine for patients in other states, according to Rebouché. About 63 % of all miscarriages in the American health care system in 2023 Drug miscarriageBut activists and legislators against abortion were Try to restrict access To birth control pills. After the decision of the Supreme Court in Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s OrganizationThe Biden Administration has made efforts to increase access to abortion pills by allowing them to be described through health care and receiving them via mail, but the advocates of reproductive rights are Anxious The Trump administration will review these efforts. Hinkley says that the “lifeblood” was “the” lifeline “of many people who live in the states of prohibiting or restricting abortion.
Read more: How to protect the Biden administration, the arrival of the pill – and what Trump can do after that
What are the current legal challenges of the Shield of Laws?
Texas, who has banned abortion in almost all situations, filed a civil lawsuit against Dr. Margaret Dali Carptter, based in New York, allegedly describing it, through children, the abortion pills for a 20 -year -old woman in Texas. Texas claims that the woman has been transferred to the hospital with complications. On February 13, Texas judge I command The carpenter to stop describing the abortion pills to the Texas residents, and paying a fine of more than $ 100,000. Carpetter and her lawyers did not respond, given the New York Shield Law, which prevents cooperation with other state investigations in service providers.
Louisiana, who is also suffering from the imposition of a semi -abortion, was accused of a felony of a felony of allegedly describing the abortion pills through medication from a minor who was pregnant. Louisiana officials claim that the patient was transferred to the hospital after taking birth control pills because she was suffering from a medical emergency. “Not now, not at all” – the New York Shield Law. Louisiana Unconnected constitutionalism Al -Najjar unless it is physically present in the state of the court, according to the restoration of Al -Bushor.
Cases are the first time the shield laws are tested in court. “I think they refer to what we can expect to move forward in the conflict between the states,” says Ribiosh about both cases. “I don’t think it’s surprising; I think this is the place we always went, given this Dobbs Abortion has returned to the state and a third of the country prohibits abortion from the first moments of pregnancy or six weeks ago, just as many states have provided abortion rights in its constitutions and the laws of the state. ”
Read more: Below is Trump’s main moves that affect access to reproductive health care
What carries the future for the laws of the shield?
Because New York will not cooperate with Texas and Louisiana, the future of the two cases is somewhat clear.
“Those [cases] It raises deep constitutional structural questions about the relations between the states. “” It is imperative that they end up with the Supreme Court because there is a long and complicated history in mediation between countries when they do not agree on public policy, and this is where we are now. “
Henkli says that the intention of legal challenges is to intimidate doctors who care for abortion, but shield laws provide access to people throughout the country. She adds that the laws “fall directly within the authority of states at age” and are constitutional.
“I am sure that there will be constant challenges to the laws of the shield, but I can say with certainty that [shield laws] It was formulated with good care and with these legal challenges in mind, and they stand on solid ground, whether in what is allowed to do, as well as what is not allowed to do. “
