California will not extradite a doctor accused of illegally mailing abortion medication to a woman in Louisiana, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

“Louisiana’s request is denied,” Newsom said on Jan. 14 in a statement.

His statement came in response to an indictment released the previous day by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill against Dr. Rémy Coeytaux, a physician based in the North San Francisco Bay Area.

Prosecutors allege that Coeytaux prescribed and mailed abortion pills to a Louisiana woman who had found the telemedicine abortion service he worked for in October 2023, shortly after learning she was pregnant.

According to court filings, Coeytaux works with Aid Access, an Austria-based telemedicine group that says on its website it delivers abortion pills by mail within one to five days in all 50 states. The documents also state that, for $150, he sent the chemical abortion combination of mifepristone and misoprostol to the woman, who then used the drugs to end her pregnancy.

“This is not healthcare; it’s drug dealing,” Murrill said in a statement. “Individuals who flagrantly and intentionally violate our laws by sending illegal abortion pills into our state are placing women in danger.”

In rejecting the extradition request, Newsom cited an executive order he signed in June 2022, which declared that California would not cooperate with out-of-state efforts to prosecute providers of what it considers “reproductive health care,” including abortion.

Since then, California has also enacted a series of so-called “shield laws” aimed at shielding in-state providers from professional, legal, or civil consequences for performing abortions that are legal in California. Those laws also allow doctors to prescribe abortion drugs without having their names appear on the packaging.

Murrill denounced Newsom’s decision, writing in a post on X that she found it “appalling” that California officials were “openly admitting that they will protect an individual from being held accountable for illegal, medically unethical and dangerous conduct.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Coeytaux in a separate civil lawsuit, responded to an email to his office seeking comment by dismissing Louisiana’s claims as “just allegations.”

“As such, they are unproven and should not be reported as fact,” the center said in a statement. “While we can’t comment on this matter itself, one thing is clear—the state of Louisiana is going after doctors for allegedly harming women, yet they are enforcing an abortion ban that puts women’s lives at risk every day.”

The case adds to the constitutional duel between pro-life states that have banned or strictly restricted abortion and states that have moved to shield abortion providers, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that sent the issue of abortion access back to individual states.

At the center of the dispute is a question of jurisdiction. States such as Louisiana argue that if the patient is physically within their borders, the abortion occurs there and is subject to their criminal laws. But shield-law states counter that the pills are sent from within their own territory—where doing so is legal—and therefore falls under the protection of their statutes.

“Federal and state law give Governor Newsom discretion to reject extradition requests in cases, like this one, where the alleged conduct occurred in California,” Newsom’s office said.

Louisiana’s attempt to extradite Coeytaux is the second time it has sought to enforce its abortion ban against an out-of-state doctor. Last January, a Louisiana grand jury indicted New York-based Dr. Margaret Carpenter for allegedly prescribing abortion medication to a woman there.

Carpenter was also sued by Texas for violating that state’s abortion laws, but a New York judge dismissed the lawsuit under his state’s shield law.

In addition to California and New York state, Colorado, Washington state, and much of New England—Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont—have enacted shield laws for abortion providers regardless of where their patients reside.