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.
Except this time, the postal service is involved and it’s illegal to interfere with the mail. It’s a federal offense. State laws do not affect that. So any woman in, say, Texas who gets these pills will be doing so without risk to herself. And now there’s no risk to the doctor either if she gets it from one in California.
They can’t interfere with them getting it, but can prohibit usage right?
How can they prove that?
“Friend” or family member tipping off police and/or subpoenas for electronic messages are two ways that spring to mind, but those can be prevented if people are vigilant
People need to learn not to allow conservatives in their lives, including family members.
Exactly, and if you have a fundamentalist Christian friend who seems like a nice person (if you volunteer in animal shelters or food banks or the like you run into a lot of these), know that they will get you arrested without a moment’s doubt and just pray extra hard for you while you’re sitting in a jail cell
Yes, this, so much this.
True. If people aren’t careful, they could get caught. But you could say that about weed in Texas too.
Exactly, it’s a complete disgrace that people will have to be mindful of this crap just to get the reproductive healthcare they need, but if the government can’t stop a people from transporting big old stinky plants on a regular basis good luck stopping people from delivering a few pills on the occasions when they’re needed
The Polish government developed a way using tandem mass spectrometry article
I guess theoretically they could do that, but I doubt deep-cut Republican Texas could afford it.
Amazingly, there’s always no funds for relief, plenty for oppression.
At least until there are substantial law changes, I’m pretty sure that would require a warrant
True, and I am not a lawyer, but I think a judge would be able to issue a warrant if there was reasonable suspicion of a “crime” being committed in that local jurisdiction. Or would something I am overlooking prevent such a warrant? It seems like the woman could be legally vulnerable in such a case.
I’m not a lawyer either, but I think you’re absolutely right about potential legal vulnerability, but that probable cause isn’t going to be an easy thing for the prosecution to get. Like, miscarriages just happen all the time, and (theoretically) the strength of probable cause a judge would want to ok a “we’re taking some of your bodily fluids” warrant is going to be about as high as it gets.
There’s still the wrinkle of sending prescription drugs through the mail is heavily regulated, the average doctor or pharmacist isn’t allowed to just put the pill in an envelope without committing mail fraud.