California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law on Wednesday that aims to stop other states from prosecuting doctors and pharmacists who mail abortion pills to patients in places where the procedure is banned.
California already has a law protecting doctors who provide abortions from out-of-state judgements. But that law was designed to protect doctors who treat patients from other states who travel to California.
The new law goes further by forbidding authorities from cooperating with out-of-state investigations into doctors who mail abortion pills to patients in other states. It also bans bounty hunters or bail agents from apprehending doctors, pharmacists and patients in California and transporting them to another state to stand trial for providing an abortion.
Other states, including New York and Massachusetts, have similar laws. But California’s law also bars state-based social media companies — like Facebook — from complying with out-of-state subpoenas, warrants or other requests for records to discover the identity of patients seeking abortion pills.
Thanks for the further explanation. I’m curious how this is handled if products that are banned in California are mailed there from other states. For instance I recently ordered a plexiglass glue and read that if I was a resident of California they would not mail it there due to a chemical in the glue being banned in California. I’m not a lawyer obviously but to me this seems like a very similar legal situation.
I have dug into this issue in a bit more depth and I think California has more of a ground to stand on than I originally thought. See the edit to my top level comment.