Gavin Newsom refuses to extradite doctor who sold abortion pills to man who forced his girlfriend to terminate pregnancy
Louisiana has brought suit against the state of California in an effort to extradite a doctor who sold abortion pills by mail to Louisiana residents, including to a man who bought them to force his girlfriend to abort their baby. The state of Louisiana seeks to prosecute Remy Coeytaux, who sold the pills to the boyfriend of Rosalie Markezich.
Markezich said in court filings that “her boyfriend at the time used her email address to order drugs from Dr. Remy Coeytaux, a California physician, and sent her $150, which she forwarded to Coeytaux,” the AP reports. But she didn’t want to take the drugs.
Markezich felt forced to take the drugs and said that “the trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me.” She would not have had access to the drugs were it not for the Coeytaux mailing them in violation of Louisiana law. Coeytaux has been charged with “criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs.”
Despite the obvious concerns of coercion in this case, California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that the doctor will not be extradited. “Louisiana plans to sue me because I won’t extradite a doctor for providing an abortion.” He then directs his ire at Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, saying, “Go f*ck yourself. California will never help you criminalize healthcare.”
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who is a medical doctor, said in a reply to Newsom, “You’re defending a so-called doctor who sent abortion pills to a MAN so he could coerce his girlfriend into aborting their baby that she wanted to keep. That is not health care, it’s drug dealing. You should be ashamed of yourself for facilitating this behavior.”
California allows pregnancy termination into the 9th month of pregnancy as long as the patient’s life is at risk, including mental health risks. Otherwise, abortions are protected up to fetal viability. The state has made itself a sanctuary state for abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which made abortion a state and not a federal issue.
Abortions in America have only increased since the Dobbs decision, with recent data showing that the number of abortions in the country is closing in on one million per year. If any other group of people were being slaughtered in America at a rate of 1 million per year, that would be considered a genocide. |
