Those three states have passed so-called shield laws. The laws protect physicians who prescribe mifepristone by telehealth and ship it to women in other states, even when the receiving state's law forbids it. The plaintiff states argue that these laws "have nothing to do with ensuring the availability of abortion within the borders of New York, Massachusetts, and California" and that "they exist only to perpetuate abortions outside of those borders."
The filing leans on the Constitution's full faith and credit clause and on what it calls the equal-sovereignty doctrine. It contends the shield laws undercut the Supreme Court's own decision in Dobbs, which returned abortion law to the states. The attorneys general put numbers on the problem. They estimate about 1,000 abortions a month in Louisiana, 300 in Arkansas and 700 in Alabama are carried out through pills sent by mail. Those figures are the states' own estimates.
The same day, Louisiana filed a separate suit in the Western District of Louisiana. It names 30 individuals and organizations and alleges what it calls "a sweeping, coordinated scheme" to distribute abortion drugs illegally. Those are allegations. The defendants have not been found liable in any court.
The Supreme Court has not said whether it will take up the dispute. The filing comes five weeks before the Nov. 3 elections, and the March for Life announced this week that its 2027 theme will be "The Truth Is Pro-Life."
What a Mailed Package Cannot Change
Set the statutes aside for a moment. A box goes in the mail in one state and lands on a kitchen table in another. Inside is a pill that ends the life of a child in the womb. Lawyers will argue over which state's law reaches that package. They should argue it. Justice matters, and an honest contest over the Constitution is a good thing.
But the child does not live in a jurisdiction. The child lives in a mother. A line on a map does not make that child more or less human, and a shield law written in a distant capital does not make the child less precious.
Scripture does not treat the unborn as an abstraction. God spoke to a man he had called, and he said this:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)
Read it slowly. Known before formed. Set apart before born. The Lord did not say he would know Jeremiah once the boy drew breath. He knew him in the belly. A person already stood in that place, and God had a purpose for that life.
The Psalmist says the same of every one of us: "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13). Every child carries that same mark. Those who have been told otherwise should hear it plainly.
Policy has a part in this, and it should be said without apology. Laws that make it easier to end a child's life by mail, and that guard the sender from the state where the child and mother live, run against what God has written. Christians may speak sharply about the policy. We can do it while treating the officials who made it with grace. They too were formed in the womb and are loved by the one who formed them.
Mercy is owed to the woman, too. Behind many of these packages is a frightened girl or a worn-out mother who was told there was no other way. The gospel does not pile shame on her. It offers her a Savior who forgives the sins of those who come to him, and it calls the church to stand beside her with real help.
Solomon wrote a charge that still stands: "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain" (Proverbs 24:11). The verse asks something of us. It asks whether we will lift a hand.
My friend, whatever the Court decides, the truth stays put. Life is God's gift from its very beginning, and it does not depend on a ruling. Every sinner, the unborn child's mother included, can be forgiven and made new through the blood of Jesus Christ. Believe on him, and the one who knew you before you were born will receive you.