Louisiana AG Strikes Back: Lawsuits Target Newsom, Hochul Over Abortion Pills

Paul Riverbank, 2/7/2026As states clash over abortion laws and access, confusion and legal risks mount for doctors and patients, straining health care systems and intensifying national debate over reproductive rights and medical autonomy.

Louisiana’s Attorney General, Liz Murrill, has made her stance emphatically clear: the lines drawn by her state’s abortion statutes should not buckle, even at the border. Earlier this year, she turned to the federal courts, attempting to sue California and New York. Her complaint? Both states refused to hand over doctors who had mailed abortion pills to women residing inside Louisiana, a practice she claims stands in direct defiance of her state’s restrictions. In the corridors of the courthouse, Murrill insisted, “Their refusal was unconstitutional,” pressing that her state’s rules must be respected, no matter the distance.

Of course, the retort came swiftly. Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s made something of a signature out of defending California’s role in safeguarding reproductive freedoms, fired back at Murrill—this time, not from a lectern, but in terse bursts on social media. “Attempting to criminalize health care,” he called her lawsuit, underscoring that California bars such extraditions by law and has no intention of changing course for Louisiana’s sake.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the South, Texas medicine finds itself stumbling through a thicket of do’s, don’ts, and what-ifs. Doctors there waited years—not months—for any guidance after the state’s strict abortion bans went into place. Finally, just this year, the Texas Medical Board cobbled together an online training module: a presentation meant to help physicians figure out when, and how, they’re allowed to act if a patient’s health spirals during pregnancy. The entire guide clocks in at just 43 slides, but for Dr. Tony Ogburn, a practicing OB-GYN, it leaves far too much unsaid. “They’re taking years and years of medical training and experience on how to manage these cases and summarizing it,” he says incredulously. The situations described in those training examples? Rarely a perfect match for the agony and uncertainty physicians face at the bedside.

Some of the new rules are blunt: Doctors, the training says, aren’t required to stand by as a woman teeters at the edge of death—but what about the gray areas? Patients with underlying illnesses, complications that progress by the minute rather than the hour? Those scenarios defy quick answers. And for doctors who get it wrong, the consequences aren’t just professional—jail time, hefty fines, even losing their license hang in the balance. Dr. Damla Karsan, who helped treat a Texas woman forced to leave the state for care, summed it up with a certain resigned anxiety: “Having to defend your decision is still scary.” The chilling effect isn’t hypothetical; it’s a daily reality.

The gap between the law’s language and medical reality can stretch heartbreakingly wide. Investigative reporting has surfaced stories where, paralyzed by legal uncertainty, doctors delayed life-saving care. Sepsis rates have climbed. Some patients waited too long for interventions that, in another state or another era, would have come without hesitation. “The problem isn’t our doctors. It’s that pregnancy is too complicated to legislate,” one woman who’d left Texas to access care told me, a remark lingering in my mind long after.

While practitioners try to interpret the shifting landscape, anti-abortion groups have taken the fight into new territory. They’re not just pushing for clinic closures or sharper limits on in-person procedures—now, the spotlight has shifted to abortion pills. Planned Parenthood, already reeling from a wave of closures since Congress restricted all Medicaid funding to clinics performing abortions, now faces heightened pressure. Earlier this year, federal Medicaid money was pulled from such clinics across the country—a rule poised to last at least a year, its impact acutely felt in states where alternatives are already scarce.

If funding battles weren’t enough, a fresh legal front has emerged. At least half a dozen states have tried to reclassify mifepristone, a medication long used for early abortion, as a controlled substance. Their arguments hinge on studies widely dismissed by medical experts as “junk science,” while lawsuits targeting the FDA raise broader questions about federal oversight of abortion drugs. In Louisiana, efforts to label mifepristone as a controlled substance have advanced quickly, matching pace with moves in other states to restrict access however possible.

Not to be lost in this storm of state action is a slow-moving process at the federal level. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly announced that the FDA would undertake its own review of mifepristone’s safety and real-world effects. Internal agency correspondence, glimpsed by those following the saga closely, suggests that whatever the outcome, a final decision will likely be held until after the 2026 midterm elections—a delay that only heightens uncertainty everywhere else.

Through all of this, one fact holds: The pace of legislative, judicial, and regulatory change can be blistering, but the granularity—the clarity healthcare workers and patients crave—trails far behind. Hospitals brace for more lawsuits. Women and their families calculate risks, day by day, sometimes hour by hour. Doctors, left to interpret a patchwork of often contradictory rules, make impossible calls in real rooms—ones where, for now, the stakes are measured not in legal theories, but in lives upended and, at times, lost.

In the tangle of abortion law, American states are moving at their own speeds, veering off onto sharply different paths while the ground underneath seems to tilt and change by the week. Walk into certain courtrooms in Louisiana, and you’ll hear angry debates over a single packet of pills. Wander into some Texas emergency rooms, and you’ll sense the weight of decisions doctors barely want to speak aloud. The ripple of new statutes and bitter legal challenges isn’t just an abstract fight—it’s something you can almost touch, stitched into the rhythm of daily life for patients and their physicians alike.Louisiana’s Attorney General, Liz Murrill, has made her stance emphatically clear: the lines drawn by her state’s abortion statutes should not buckle, even at the border. Earlier this year, she turned to the federal courts, attempting to sue California and New York. Her complaint? Both states refused to hand over doctors who had mailed abortion pills to women residing inside Louisiana, a practice she claims stands in direct defiance of her state’s restrictions. In the corridors of the courthouse, Murrill insisted, “Their refusal was unconstitutional,” pressing that her state’s rules must be respected, no matter the distance.Of course, the retort came swiftly. Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s made something of a signature out of defending California’s role in safeguarding reproductive freedoms, fired back at Murrill—this time, not from a lectern, but in terse bursts on social media. “Attempting to criminalize health care,” he called her lawsuit, underscoring that California bars such extraditions by law and has no intention of changing course for Louisiana’s sake.Meanwhile, elsewhere in the South, Texas medicine finds itself stumbling through a thicket of do’s, don’ts, and what-ifs. Doctors there waited years—not months—for any guidance after the state’s strict abortion bans went into place. Finally, just this year, the Texas Medical Board cobbled together an online training module: a presentation meant to help physicians figure out when, and how, they’re allowed to act if a patient’s health spirals during pregnancy. The entire guide clocks in at just 43 slides, but for Dr. Tony Ogburn, a practicing OB-GYN, it leaves far too much unsaid. “They’re taking years and years of medical training and experience on how to manage these cases and summarizing it,” he says incredulously. The situations described in those training examples? Rarely a perfect match for the agony and uncertainty physicians face at the bedside.Some of the new rules are blunt: Doctors, the training says, aren’t required to stand by as a woman teeters at the edge of death—but what about the gray areas? Patients with underlying illnesses, complications that progress by the minute rather than the hour? Those scenarios defy quick answers. And for doctors who get it wrong, the consequences aren’t just professional—jail time, hefty fines, even losing their license hang in the balance. Dr. Damla Karsan, who helped treat a Texas woman forced to leave the state for care, summed it up with a certain resigned anxiety: “Having to defend your decision is still scary.” The chilling effect isn’t hypothetical; it’s a daily reality.The gap between the law’s language and medical reality can stretch heartbreakingly wide. Investigative reporting has surfaced stories where, paralyzed by legal uncertainty, doctors delayed life-saving care. Sepsis rates have climbed. Some patients waited too long for interventions that, in another state or another era, would have come without hesitation. “The problem isn’t our doctors. It’s that pregnancy is too complicated to legislate,” one woman who’d left Texas to access care told me, a remark lingering in my mind long after.While practitioners try to interpret the shifting landscape, anti-abortion groups have taken the fight into new territory. They’re not just pushing for clinic closures or sharper limits on in-person procedures—now, the spotlight has shifted to abortion pills. Planned Parenthood, already reeling from a wave of closures since Congress restricted all Medicaid funding to clinics performing abortions, now faces heightened pressure. Earlier this year, federal Medicaid money was pulled from such clinics across the country—a rule poised to last at least a year, its impact acutely felt in states where alternatives are already scarce.If funding battles weren’t enough, a fresh legal front has emerged. At least half a dozen states have tried to reclassify mifepristone, a medication long used for early abortion, as a controlled substance. Their arguments hinge on studies widely dismissed by medical experts as “junk science,” while lawsuits targeting the FDA raise broader questions about federal oversight of abortion drugs. In Louisiana, efforts to label mifepristone as a controlled substance have advanced quickly, matching pace with moves in other states to restrict access however possible.Not to be lost in this storm of state action is a slow-moving process at the federal level. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly announced that the FDA would undertake its own review of mifepristone’s safety and real-world effects. Internal agency correspondence, glimpsed by those following the saga closely, suggests that whatever the outcome, a final decision will likely be held until after the 2026 midterm elections—a delay that only heightens uncertainty everywhere else.Through all of this, one fact holds: The pace of legislative, judicial, and regulatory change can be blistering, but the granularity—the clarity healthcare workers and patients crave—trails far behind. Hospitals brace for more lawsuits. Women and their families calculate risks, day by day, sometimes hour by hour. Doctors, left to interpret a patchwork of often contradictory rules, make impossible calls in real rooms—ones where, for now, the stakes are measured not in legal theories, but in lives upended and, at times, lost.