Who gets to decide what justice looks like in an era when reproductive care is being treated as a crime?
As abortion rights vanish state by state, Louisiana is emerging as a key battleground—and New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams stands on the frontlines.
In his view, the state’s political future is inseparable from the city’s. Even before taking office, Williams believed: as New Orleans goes, so goes the state. It’s an insight the state’s Republican Governor Jeff Landry has since come to recognize, and one that underscores the stakes of Williams’ work today.
In 2008, at just 35 years old, New Orleans native Jason Williams launched an unlikely bid for Orleans Parish district attorney, running on a bold promise to turn the criminal legal system into a force for progress. Though he lost, he went on to serve six years on the City Council, including four as its president.
In 2021, he ran again—and won—on a progressive platform to build a more equitable justice system.
In a post-Roe America, where reproductive freedom depends not just on where you live but who your prosecutor is, Williams represents a growing number of local officials refusing to criminalize care.
“Living in a place like New Orleans will always keep you hopeful,” Williams told me when we spoke last month.
His office, filled with vibrant New Orleans memorabilia, felt more like a living room than a government building. The conversation was easy, even when the topics weren’t.
As one of the few progressive prosecutors in the Deep South, Williams operates under intense pressure—from conservative lawmakers, a hostile state government and a legal landscape increasingly tilted against reproductive rights. But he’s doing so with clear priorities: Decriminalize pregnancy outcomes, defend healthcare providers and prioritize the health and dignity of Black and low-income women in his parish.
New Orleans, a blue dot in a deeply red state, is a city that thrives on resistance. But just an hour away, in West Baton Rouge Parish, a landmark legal case is unfolding. A mother and a New York-based OB-GYN, Dr. Margaret D. Carpenter, both indicted for helping the woman’s daughter access abortion pills via telehealth. (The name of the mother is being concealed to protect the identity of the teenager.) The case has national implications—and DA Williams sees it as a test of what comes next.
Williams has to wield a particularly difficult set of skills to serve the people of Orleans Parish, and the core of his approach is simple but powerful: keep the conversation going. Even with those who disagree. Especially with those who disagree. Real, sustained dialogue is the only path forward in a state where compromise often feels impossible.
His leadership offers a feminist framework for prosecutorial discretion—one rooted in justice, not punishment. In our conversation, we discussed what’s at stake in this moment, not only for Louisiana, but for the entire country; who gets to decide what justice looks like in an era when reproductive care is being treated as a crime?
Louisiana’s Reproductive Health Crisis
Jason Williams was sworn in as Orleans Parish district attorney in 2021, after serving as the city’s youngest district judge and working as a criminal defense attorney.
That same year, he published an op-ed in Time titled, “Our System Criminalizes Black Pregnancy. As a District Attorney, I Refuse to Prosecute These Cases.” In it, he condemned how the criminal justice system targets pregnant people—especially Black women—by punishing health outcomes and undermining their reproductive autonomy.
He pointed to a disturbing reality, that over 38 states, including Louisiana, have feticide laws that can allow women to be charged for pregnancy outcomes. These laws disproportionately impact Black women in the South, particularly those struggling with mental health, poverty or substance use.
Louisiana’s maternal health crisis only heightens this threat. With one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country at 37.3 per 100,000 births and widespread barriers to reproductive care, the burden falls hardest on Black and low-income communities where even basic prenatal services are out of reach.
For many, pregnancy is no longer just medically risky—it’s legally perilous. A miscarriage, stillbirth or private medical decision can lead to prosecution.
Prosecutors have an obligation and responsibility to intervene to stop the cycle of criminalization of Black pregnancy.
District Attorney Jason Williams, ‘Time’
DA Williams spoke to this reality, noting that Orleans Parish has a high rate of poverty, within a state that already has a high rate of poverty: “Outcomes when it comes to pregnant women were abysmal 10 years ago, and they’ve only gotten worse.”
He described entire neighborhoods in New Orleans as reproductive health deserts, a crisis worsened since Roe’s fall. Providers now face an impossible choice: risk their careers or risk patients’ lives.
“I think it’s dangerous,” he said. “I think [The Roe] decision has set up an environment that puts more women at risk of dying because of failing to seek help, seeking help but not receiving it, or simply waiting too long. And when you talk about this area of medicine or healthcare, waiting too long can oftentimes prove fatal.”
Prosecutorial Responsibility in a Post-Roe South
In his TIME op-ed, DA Williams also wrote, “Prosecutors have an obligation and responsibility to intervene to stop the cycle of criminalization of Black pregnancy,” one that predates Roe and has only intensified in its aftermath.
When I asked what that responsibility looks like in practice, Williams was direct: “When you talk about poverty in this state, a big part of that is going to be [dealing with] Black and brown people.”
He acknowledged that many white and Latino families also face poverty in the state, but emphasized the long-standing Southern history of controlling Black bodies, particularly in Louisiana and New Orleans. The city’s economic power was built in part through the slave trade, and that legacy remains embedded in the legal system today.
“This is just the latest evolution of controlling Black bodies,” he said. “In this particular situation, it’s Black women—and, women [in general].”
He added that pregnancy-related decisions don’t exist in a vacuum; they affect partners and families too, expanding the reach of state control beyond just the individual.
This is just the latest evolution of controlling Black bodies… In this particular situation, it’s Black women–and, women [in general].
District Attorney Williams
One moment during our conversation stuck with me. “I can’t even watch Handmaid’s Tale,” he told me. “It’s just too close to reality, and I think we have to be very alert about some of the regressive decisions that we’re seeing from leaders, that will not only take us back to a dark place … [but] to a dark and very dangerous place.”
Why Reproductive Policing Doesn’t Serve Justice
Across the South, the fall of Roe has had sweeping consequences, with many states enforcing trigger laws that banned abortion the moment it was overturned. As of June, 16 states have total abortion bans, many of them in the South or Upper South—leaving Louisiana residents with some of the longest travel distances if they want in-person care.
Louisiana’s 2022 trigger bans prohibit abortion at any stage of pregnancy, criminalizing both medication and procedural methods. Penalties include up to 10 years in prison, fines of $10,000 to $100,000, loss of medical licensure and potential civil liability for the “unborn child’s” death. While pregnant individuals are exempt from prosecution, vague exceptions for their life or health leave patients and doctors in legal uncertainty.
There are no longer any operating abortion clinics in Louisiana. Pre-Dobbs, just three remained: in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport.
Today, every parish in the state is far over 200 miles from the nearest provider, with Illinois—more than 800 miles from New Orleans—the closest state offering abortion through 24-26 weeks. Louisiana is home to over 1 million women of reproductive age, and in 2020, 7,360 abortions were provided in the state. Now, New Orleans is one of the most isolated U.S. cities from legal abortion care.
When I asked DA Williams whether the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision had changed his approach as a prosecutor in Louisiana, he offered an answer from two perspectives: macro and micro.
At the macro level, he pointed to the post-pandemic surge in violent crime. In 2022, New Orleans was named the “murder capital” of the United States. Since then, his office has collaborated strategically with nonprofit and federal partners to reverse that trend—cutting homicides by over 50 percent. The city, once leading in violence, now ranks fourth nationwide in homicides per capita as of data from 2024.
This wasn’t a detour from my question, he explained—it was the point. When prosecutors or police pursue every possible offense, including low-level or non-violent ones, it drains resources from the serious work of solving violent crimes and protecting communities.
Efforts to criminalize reproductive outcomes, whether through state bans or federal interference, are, in his view, a dangerous misallocation of legal resources and power, and detract from justice for victims of violent crimes.
“The idea that anybody would want to do anything on the federal level or local level to remove resources, eyes, energy, lawyers [and] investigators from the work of helping victims and survivors of violent crime get justice by going after those perpetrators, I think is wrong-headed,” he said.
On a micro level, the reality is even starker: The city simply doesn’t have the capacity to criminalize reproductive decisions. “We don’t have enough money or enough lawyers or investigators to do the work that we have right now,” he said. “So, when there is a decision that says, or that is asking you, to look away from these types of crimes to focus on doctors and the choices that women make with their bodies,” he added, “it is de-prioritizing another area of criminal activity [that the city needs to keep its citizens safe].”
“And that is before you even get to the moral implications of body autonomy, and creating spaces where doctors, nurses and healthcare workers feel like they’re in fear of doing their job,” he said. “They’re in fear of criminal implications for giving what, sometimes, is life saving care.”
Williams made clear that his office’s priorities haven’t changed. They remain focused on violent crime—not policing pregnancy—and that, he believes, is what the people of Orleans Parish want and deserve.
The Next Legal Frontier: Abortion Prosecutions Without Borders
With abortion becoming increasingly criminalized, I asked the DA how he sees these cases evolving under today’s volatile political landscape. “I think it’s going to be really hard,” he said bluntly.
He described a system on the brink of disruption, one where healthcare providers face prosecution for offering care, and where states are locked in unprecedented jurisdictional battles.
“When you start looking at the criminalization of women’s bodies and the criminalization of the healthcare being provided by those professionals, and you realize that it crosses state lines, it brings up all sorts of issues that have not been tested or really pushed or vetted in decades.”
In his Time op-ed, Williams referenced the 2019 case of Marshae Jones, a Black woman in Alabama indicted after being shot and losing her pregnancy. The local DA ultimately declined to prosecute, challenging the racist narratives used against Jones. It was an example of prosecutorial discretion used to prevent injustice. But that kind of discretion may be waning.
Just west of Orleans Parish, a case is unfolding that could redefine the post-Roe legal landscape. In January, a Louisiana mother was indicted for helping her teenage daughter access abortion pills prescribed by Dr. Margaret Carpenter, a New York physician and co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine.
On Jan. 31, Louisiana Attorney General Liza Murril issued an extradition warrant for Carpenter on felony charges—marking the first known criminal case to test the legality of out-of-state abortion access post-Dobbs. Carpenter also faces a civil suit in Texas seeking to ban her from sending abortion pills there.
Prosecutors allege the teen’s mother, who also faces felony charges, ordered mifepristone online, and coerced her daughter into taking it, leading to a medical emergency. Carpenter could face up to 15 years in prison and $200,000 in fines if convicted. AG Murrill has compared mailing abortion pills to trafficking fentanyl, and warned that Carpenter could be arrested in other states if NY blocks her extradition.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has refused to comply with the extradition request, citing the state’s telehealth shield law. Meanwhile, West Baton Rouge DA Tony Clayton, working with AG Murrill, is pursuing charges under a 2022 law criminalizing medication-induced abortion. The mother was taken into custody at West Baton Rouge Parish Jail in March, pleading not guilty.
This case highlights a growing national standoff: Red states are attempting to enforce abortion bans across state lines, while blue states push back. A 2023 Columbia Law Review article anticipated this kind of interstate conflict, arguing that Roe’s fall would intensify, not resolve, abortion disputes.
“Now we’re in a place where, depending upon where you are born, where you live or where you choose to go to college, your rights change,” Williams said. “And that is not steady ground to live on. That is not a good basis for a country to grow and develop.”
He views these cases not as isolated incidents, but as indicators of deep national fragility. “It could play out and be very damaging and harmful to this country, or it could play out and finally make things clear,” he said. “But I think it’s going to be a very long process.”
He’s struck not just by the facts, but by the broader context: a country where states are pursuing prosecutions based on regional politics, often in direct conflict with one another.
“I think we’re looking at a years-long battle,” Williams said. “And I think it’s hard for us to even know where it will end, and it could feasibly still be an issue beyond this presidential administration because of the structural damage that’s been caused.”
For providers operating in this new legal gray zone, the consequences are chilling and immediate. Dr. Carpenter now faces threats to her medical license and restrictions on her travel—even to other Democratic states.
When I asked how the role of DAs might evolve in this fractured legal environment, Williams reflected on just how much the prosecutorial landscape has already changed:
“I think the role of a local prosecutor has grown exponentially over the past several decades, and I think some of these new changes in the law might speed up that growth or that expansion of the role. It’s hard to say right now. We’ve seen the opening act of some of these legal battles about body autonomy. … We’re still at the beginning of it, so I think we’d be guessing. And one thing you can never do is determine how a legal case is going to unfold, and this one is far more unique than any of the cases I’ve seen before.”
Navigating Blue Values in a Red State
In a country increasingly divided by geography and ideology, the role of a prosecutor has become ever more politicized. Few know that better than DA Williams.
After discussing the national legal battles over bodily autonomy and jurisdiction, I shifted the conversation back to Williams’ own political reality: leading a progressive office in a deeply conservative state.
Often described as a “progressive” prosecutor, Williams was elected four years ago on a platform of criminal justice reform and police accountability. He broke from his tough-on-crime predecessor by launching the office’s first civil rights division and expanding post-conviction relief efforts. But in Louisiana, where Republicans hold the governor’s office, the attorney general’s seat and control of both legislative chambers, those reforms have triggered political backlash.
In 2024, conservative lawmakers passed a law requiring Williams to get approval from Attorney General Murrill before engaging in post-conviction work. It was a direct blow to the autonomy of his office—and a clear warning that the state’s Republican leadership would not allow his progressive policies to go unchecked.
When I asked how he balances his values with the broader political climate of Louisiana and the South, he was candid. “It’s a weird, very small tight rope to walk. And sometimes it feels like there’s no net, so any step could potentially be fatal to cases, to the work that we’re trying to do.”
New Orleans, he explained, often feels ideologically and culturally detached from the rest of the state. At times, he says, “It feels more like the northernmost part of the Caribbean or a suburb of New York, then it does the Deep South, sometimes in terms of how people treat each other, in terms of how we live and how we celebrate.” It’s this cultural distinctiveness, he says, that helps keep the city on the global map.
With over 130 festivals a year and a history steeped in Black and LGBTQ+ culture, New Orleans stands out for its diversity and progressive spirit. But that distinctiveness can make governing more complicated. Williams represents a city whose values often clash with those of the parishes surrounding it.
“It is precarious being an elected official representing the interest of the people of a city when the parishes around us don’t necessarily see it that way,” he said.
Still, Williams believes in the power of dialogue, even across deep divides. “The need for collaboration should never trump values and core principles,” he told me. “But the idea that liberals and conservatives should fight about every single thing for the entire term really does damage to the public service that’s necessary,” he added.
Williams continues to seek common ground wherever possible, especially on shared concerns like public safety. And while his approach is shaped by the unique culture of his city, it may offer a model for other progressive prosecutors in navigating red-state politics: hold your ground, build coalitions and never stop the conversation.
Working with Republican Governor Jeff Landry
It is clear DA Williams practices what he preaches. Despite deep ideological differences, he has found ways to work with Republican Governor Jeff Landry—proof that even in a fractured political landscape, shared goals can still yield common ground.
Gov. Landry, a staunch Republican who made headlines for his hardline positions on abortion, supported Louisiana’s 2022 near-total abortion ban and suggested that anyone who disagreed with the policy should consider leaving the state. In response to New Orleans’ stance on decriminalizing abortion, he urged the State Bond Commission to withhold funding for critical infrastructure projects in the city. In May 2024, Landry signed a first-of-its-kind bill reclassifying mifepristone and misoprostol–two FDA-approved abortion medications–as controlled, dangerous substances.
He also signed the extradition warrant for Dr. Carpenter, declaring on video that her extradition is the only way to serve “justice.”
Most recently, just weeks after our interview, 10 men escaped from the Orleans Parish jail. Gov. Landry used the incident to attack DA Williams, framing the escape as the failure of “a progressive criminal justice system,” and using it to amplify his law-and-order message.
When I asked about their relationship, he described their first meeting, initiated by both of them, before Gov. Landry was even sworn into office.
“I think the one thing the governor realized, which I’ve said since before I was in office,” Williams said, “is that the direction that New Orleans goes, so does the state.”
New Orleans is not just a cultural hub—it’s an economic engine. Williams suggested that the governor quickly realized that the city’s financial health directly impacts the rest of Louisiana. That shared understanding became the basis for collaboration, particularly around violent crime.
Soon after taking office, Gov. Landry agreed to send additional state troopers to New Orleans. He ultimately exceeded the initial request, permanently installing Troop NOLA—a move Williams credits as a major factor in the city’s sharp drop in homicides. Since then, the two have worked with other local officials to develop broader safety strategies.
Williams sees this collaboration as a model for what’s possible: “Collaboration is necessary,” he told me, “and when we work together and we’re in the same direction, there are real results, and there are real public safety benefits to that.”
Of course, key ideological divides—especially on reproductive rights—remain. But Williams is proud that even with those divides, there’s still dialogue. His willingness to prioritize shared goals in service of his community is rare, and increasingly necessary.
His approach offers a blueprint for other prosecutors in red states. Working with a governor whose values may be diametrically opposed doesn’t require abandoning your own. It does require strategy, clear priorities and a willingness to meet in the overlap.
They Can’t Do it Alone: The Power of Community in the Fight for Reproductive Justice
“In every endeavor of any public servant or elected official,” said Williams, “people are the sixth man on the basketball court.”
His message is simple but urgent: Public officials need the public. That means staying connected to people’s fears, needs and hopes, and ensuring they have a real voice in shaping policy.
Part of that connection, he says, also means fighting disinformation. In an era of fractured media, Williams believes elected leaders have a responsibility not just to speak the truth, but to amplify it, challenging falsehoods before they take hold.
“Because this affects everybody,” he said. “Reproductive rights, that’s how we all got here, right?”
He spoke personally, reflecting on his daughter, his wife, and the reality that they are now living in a country where their rights are shrinking. “The one thing people don’t expect ever to happen, certainly at least not in America, is for their rights to shrink.”
“The things that they have control of, like their body, you don’t expect to lose that. And that is a social shock that is still very new and we still haven’t seen what that looks like or the real impacts of that going forward over a long period of time,” he continued.
He also urges people to show up, not at just protests and rallies, but physically and consistently, in decision-making spaces. “[Pack] meeting places and government halls and the capitol whenever there’s discussion about these things being present in courtrooms, because courtrooms are public spaces.” Even in silence, people can be heard.
What Keeps Him Hopeful
“Number one, is that I can have a conversation with people with radically different views and still find common ground means that all hope is not lost.”
This, DA Williams told me, is what keeps him going. And it’s one of his most defining traits, the ability to remain open, curious and rooted in dialogue, even in the most polarized times.
“Living in a place like New Orleans will always keep you hopeful,” he said, “because the spirit of the people here is very, very singular.”
He told me about seeing Dave Matthews perform at Preservation Hall during the city’s jazz festival—not just a brush with celebrity, but a moment that represented something deeper.
Matthews told the audience, when you hear a politician trying to divide people, you need to remember the beat. “The beats that you hear when you go to a concert, to a show, when everybody’s head starts bobbing at the same time, because it’s that common beat that they all love,” Williams added.
No one in the crowd knew, or cared, who was a Democrat or a Republican. “But they all love that beat,” he said. “We have to remember that beat. New Orleans is a special place because we have that beat going on all over this place.”
That rhythm, alive in the streets and in the people, is what gives him hope. “There’s congo drums from Congo Square going back to when slaves were beating those drums. The beat is a common reminder—a consistent reminder of the commons, of the collective, of the things that keep us and hold us together.”
“Just living here in a place where that is relished and actually easy, is a good thing.”
And so, in the face of urgent injustice and deep political divides, he returns to that rhythm. Because when people move together, even briefly, it becomes proof that something better is still possible.
