- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to have strict anti-abortion laws.
Oh no, they can’t go to Louisiana anymore…
It’s a bit broader than that; they’re probably limited to states with abortion shield laws as states without one will likely be willing to arrest them and ship them to Louisiana.
The fun part of that becomes, how will they know? Constant license plate tracking through cameras and subsequent information sharing across state PDs to catch, what in reality, is a political crime, and only illegal for brownie points with the electorate, or will they rely on more pointed surveillance waiting for the opportunity?
Also, I know license plates already get tracked, but I don’t think an Dr prescribing a legal medication in their state would warrant flagged traveling across a multitude of states just for the chance to make a political arrest. Not that it’s beyond them or I don’t think they would to make a point, but it would admittedly be more absurd than expected.
This actually could be done pathetically easily.
Just set up an alert in the license plate reader’s software to look for a NY plate 123-ABC, then just sit back and wait. Once the doctor’s car drives down a highway that triggers these readers off, it becomes pretty easy to track his movements. Then pull him over for illegally tinted windows or something and voila. As long as the software is capable of comparing the plate to a list of wanted plates in a database and sending out alerts when it finds one, which should be functionality included in even the most basic software, the problem wouldn’t be dedicating resources to finding him. It would just be a matter of sitting back and waiting.
And yes, the idea that you would be essentially trapped in your own state and facing potential capture, prosecution, felony charges, and loss of medical licenses if you travelled out of state, would itself be more than enough to make sure doctors refuse to send pills to red states.
I don’t think a New York doctor would be too upset about not traveling to the South
I don’t think the practice of it would be hard, it’s more the passing of information between depts. Open investigations get botched with info transfer, and people skate by with open warrants for “worse” charges than prescribing a medication some states don’t like. I don’t think the shortcoming is in the ability to do it, moreso the will. I do concede that maybe I’m underestimating the amount of red-faced cops who would love to be the arresting officer, but I’d hope they could find better uses of their time than this. I do continue to be surprised at things though, so maybe you’re right.
Again, assuming LPR software has even the most basic database functionality, the whole process can be entirely automated and void of human interaction at all once the plate is flagged. The biggest thing would be if they got a hit saying that NY plate 123-ABC is currently on I-95, would the state troopers bother heading out to pull him over? And if you’re the doctor, would you want to risk your own freedom taking the chance? And if the answer to that is no, then you’re essentially trapping yourself in your own state, or even your own area if you’re in a purple state where some counties are more willing to cooperate than others. And to the GOP, that in and of itself would be just fine. They’d still essentially win.
It isn’t about database functionality, it’s about information sharing across jurisdictions and state lines. There isn’t a national police force, different precincts use different methods. States have highway patrol, local PD, sheriff’s, etc. It isn’t just saying “look for plate NY-A447 338” and every camera across the nation checks for it. Additionally, not every Dept and precinct is going to have resources to throw at catching a random Dr because Louisiana is pissy about stuff. There also would, presumably, be some planned lack of cooperation across some states and potentially intra-state departments. Different places prioritize different crimes to chase. New York obviously won’t be extraditing him, and I imagine similarly for other Northeast states surround NY, as well as “blue” city precincts.
I’m sure the Dr is questioning traveling and stuff; but that’s wasn’t what I was trying to discuss; it was merely the concept of a national surveillance system monitoring one individual on behalf of a single state (or group of randomly spaced states) throwing resources after a political win, and the necessary cooperation across dozens and dozens of different state and local departments, in pursuit of this one individual.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that.
This is very likely going to the Supreme court. And there is a non-zero chance that they will allow states to start enforcing their laws outside of their own borders (of course, they’ll word it in such a way to make sure only Republican states can impose their will on blue states. Once blue states try to impose their own laws, it’ll be viewed upon as retaliation and struck down by the SC because reasons.)
If they manage to get that far (and again, there is a non-zero chance they will), it’s not all that much of a hop, skip, and a jump before it’s perfectly legal for one state to send state troopers to a residence in another state in order to enforce state laws, with the rationale that “criminals cannot simply escape consequences for their crimes by fleeing to a state sympathetic to their cause” or somesuch. (And again, they’ll be sure to make sure that only red states are allowed this luxury.)
And I could very easily see a prosecutor who wants to advance his own legal or political career willing to try this while the entire justice system is extremely MAGA friendly and basically forcing the issue.
I look forward to a massive influx of doctors seeking asylum in Canada if this occurs.
Red states would be OK with that, though.
So would Canada (me), we need more Docs and the US training is good enough for us to give them a license.
To be fair to US doctors (at least in my area), they are among the world’s best trained and knowledgable. It’s just the system they’re forced to work in that sucks. Saying the US doctors are “good enough” doesn’t give them nearly enough credit. Don’t blame the doctors for the faults of the system they’re forced to work under.