Democratic women attorneys general are deploying legal strategies and multistate coordination to defend and expand access to reproductive healthcare in the face of escalating federal and state-level attacks.
In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there have been concerted efforts in states across the country and by the Trump administration to further limit access to abortion, but also to reproductive healthcare access and rights more broadly.
These efforts have not gone unchecked. A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general across the country have been working in concert to counteract many of these measures and to protect access to reproductive healthcare within their states—through enacting safe harbor or shield laws, defending state laws and constitutional provisions providing residents with the right to provide and obtain abortions, and filing lawsuits against the Trump administration and other states where necessary, to name a few.
… We are the patriots who are standing up for the Constitution of the United States, for our federalist constitutional system, and for this country. I don’t think of it as resisting, I think of standing up for what we have and protecting it.
Vermont AG Charity Clark
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark describes the coalition:
“It is such a diverse group of people. I’m incredibly proud to work alongside these, honestly, some of them truly are luminaries, and their legal minds are incredible, their understanding of people, and they have different backgrounds and lived experiences that I think inform the passion that they have for their work, just as I do.”
The coalition brings diverse perspectives together and allows for communication across states lines on how different policies, legislation and lawsuits are impacting individual states.
AG Clark says, “We support each other and provide perspective to each other based on what might be happening in our state. It’s been pretty incredible to be a part of that team,” which allows individual states to have more power by banding together.
Within this coalition, another pattern emerges: the role of Democratic women attorneys general fighting back against efforts to undermine reproductive justice. This group of attorneys general includes AG Clark, Arizona AG Kris Mayes, Delaware AG Kathy Jennings, Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell and Michigan AG Dana Nessel.
I spoke with Campbell, Clark and Jennings to discuss how women AGs are showing up in this moment.
The AGs are, as AG Campbell describes, using all the tools in their toolbox to pushback:
“We are responding not only through litigation, also through guidance and through amicus briefs as well as possible legislative changes. Our tools are expansive, and we are bringing them all to bear, because we see the attacks that are coming towards our residents here in Massachusetts and elsewhere as being expansive. Whether it is a lawsuit trying to maintain adequate and affordable pricing for healthcare for our residents, or legislation to protect our patients or providers, or guidance in ensuring folks in Massachusetts know, for example, they can continue to access abortion care or mifepristone or contraception. It’s a full response, because the range of attacks coming from the federal administration are expansive and egregious, so we’re using all the tools in our toolkit to fight back.”
Part of this state level effort includes shield laws, formerly known as safe harbor laws, to protect providers and patients performing and seeking abortion in the state. Many of these laws have been expanded to include protections for gender affirming care as well. These laws provide protections for services performed within the state, even if the care is being received outside of the state.
Delaware’s shield law is one of the most recent to be put to the test by Texas AG Ken Paxton’s office. Paxton’s office filed a lawsuit against Her Safe Harbor and Debra Lynch, a Delaware clinic and provider, for providing telehealth care to patients in Texas. Specifically, they allege that Her Safe Harbor has violated a Texas law by “prescribing and mailing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents for the purpose of performing elective abortions.”
This is active litigation that might become before AG Jennings’ office. While she couldn’t speak directly to this case, Jennings explained the Delaware shield law in this way:
“In Delaware, we guarantee that doctors who performed abortions in Delaware and people who received medication abortions would be safe from extradition from our state, and that we would not honor subpoenas or other processes from states that restricted abortion to Delaware to try to penalize the people who provided those services. We also agree we’re not producing records of any woman who comes to Delaware and receives abortion services.”
Jennings went on to say, “We have no intention of honoring a subpoena of that nature.”
Of course, this work is not only about resistance or fighting back against harmful policies—it’s also proactive.
AG Campbell explains this need well in describing her office’s development of a reproductive justice unit, which was necessary even prior to the current administration:
“Prior to the Trump administration, we saw consistent attacks on access to reproductive healthcare. It’s why I established our newly created reproductive justice unit, to ensure the work we were doing was not only fighting back, but also ensuring people had access to reproductive healthcare, including mifepristone, contraception. In addition to that, making sure we were addressing the disparities that exist in healthcare as well, including black maternal health disparities. So just an intersectional approach in our response to these attacks, and now with the Trump administration, we’re continuing to see these attacks, but in a way that is more egregious, as well as personal for many folks, and, of course, more horrific, not only here in Massachusetts, but across the country.”
AG Clark offered a similar sentiment in finding issue with using the term resistance as a frame for this conversation:
“You use the word ‘resistance,’ and I have something else to say about that. I like to think of it in a different way, because I don’t think we’re resisting so much as we are standing up for something, and I truly believe we are the patriots who are standing up for the Constitution of the United States, for our federalist constitutional system, and for this country. I don’t think of it as resisting, I think of standing up for what we have and protecting it.
As the attacks keep on coming and the lawsuits continue to be filed, women attorneys general will be using the tools available to them to both push back and to imagine better futures.
