NY approves protections for providers sending abortion pills to states with strict anti-abortion laws
The New York State Capitol in Albany, where lawmakers passed a bill protecting New York doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills out of state. Credit: AP/Hans Pennink
ALBANY — The Assembly gave final approval Tuesday to legislation that would provide legal protection for New York physicians and medical professionals who prescribe and send abortion medication to patients in states with strict anti-abortion laws.
The Democrat-dominated Assembly approved the measure, 99-45, largely along party lines. The Senate, also led by Democrats, had approved it in May.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has championed a number of abortion-rights measures, is expected to support the bill though her office didn’t immediately comment.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he backed the legislation because current New York law doesn’t “provide protection against out-of-state litigation for the use of telehealth, and therefore puts doctors at risk for providing care to those in states with laws restricting reproductive health care.”
He said the measure, if signed into law, would provide the “strong reproductive health care shield laws.”
“It is our moral obligation to help women across the country with their bodily autonomy by protecting New York doctors from litigation efforts from anti-choice extremists,” Heastie (D-Bronx) said in a statement. “Telehealth is the future of healthcare, and this bill is simply the next step in making sure our doctors are protected.”
The Assembly, announcing the bill’s passage, said medication-abortions account for more than 50% of abortions nationwide now.
The measure would add to a raft of abortion-rights measures New York has adopted since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights.
Among them, a 2022 law protected abortion providers in New York from arrest, extradition and legal proceedings in other states by forbidding state and local courts and law enforcement agencies from cooperating in most scenarios.
Similarly, the law approved by the Assembly on Tuesday would prevent extradition for providing abortion medication to a patient in a state with a strict abortion ban. But it might not protect a doctor, in this scenario, who then traveled to the state and faced charges.
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