Newsom Just Hit ‘Decline’ on Louisiana’s Extradition Request, and Yes, It Rules

Louisiana, The state that treats forced birth like a hobby, attempted to extradite a San Francisco Bay Area physician, Dr. Remy Coeytaux, over allegations tied to mailing abortion medication to a Louisiana patient in 2023. Gavin Newsom (America’s Daddy) responded the only way a sane leader can: no.

Newsom officially rejected Louisiana’s extradition request on January 14, 2026, explicitly grounding it in California’s legal protections for reproductive health care providers and his own Executive Order N-12-22, the one he issued after Dobbs to stop red-state prosecutors from using California as their personal repo lot for women’s autonomy, according to the governor’s office announcement on gov.ca.gov.

And yes, that is exactly what this is: an interstate repo attempt. Louisiana wants to reach across state lines and punish a doctor sitting under California law because Louisiana politicians can’t handle the idea that people might access medical care without first kneeling before a state legislature and begging forgiveness.

Louisiana’s big swing: criminalizing a doctor who isn’t theirs

Here’s the core allegation: Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill says Dr. Coeytaux, via an online telemedicine service, mailed mifepristone and misoprostol to a Louisiana woman in 2023, according to the Associated Press coverage of the indictment and extradition push at AP News. Louisiana prosecutors claim this violates the state’s near-total abortion ban, which prohibits abortion at all stages and backs it up with harsh penalties. That legal regime is the point. The cruelty is the product.

Louisiana then did the whole tough-guy routine: file charges, get an arrest warrant, tee up extradition paperwork, and float the idea that then-Gov. Jeff Landry could request California hand the doctor over, as reported locally by ABC7 News.

It’s a power play dressed up as “law enforcement.” The message is the same as always: comply with our ideology even if you live somewhere else.

Gavin Newsom’s response: the shield laws mean something

Newsom didn’t treat this like a polite misunderstanding between states. He treated it like what it is: a political attempt to export forced-birth enforcement into California. In his statement rejecting the extradition, Newsom pointed to Executive Order N-12-22 and California laws designed to protect providers from out-of-state harassment for reproductive care that’s legal here, per the official release at gov.ca.gov.

He also framed the stakes clearly: extraditing Coeytaux would let “extremist politicians from other states” reach into California to punish doctors over allegations related to reproductive health care, as quoted in the AP report at AP News.

That line should be engraved on a plaque and mounted directly above the doorway of every governor’s office in every blue state. Because if you let one state’s punitive ideology become another state’s enforcement problem, you’re basically volunteering to become a subsidiary of whatever the most unhinged attorney general in the country is feeling that week.

California’s shield framework exists for this exact scenario: out-of-state officials trying to use courts, cops, paperwork, and intimidation to claw back rights their voters took away at home. Newsom is telling them to take the L and keep it moving.

This is what “states’ rights” looks like when it’s actually real

MAGA loves to chant “states’ rights” like it’s a magic spell that turns authoritarian policy into patriotism. But watch how fast that whole performance collapses the second California uses its own sovereign authority to protect people inside California.

Louisiana wants a nationalized forced-birth regime without having to pass federal law. They want the benefits of federal supremacy without the inconvenience of democracy. That’s why the case is so important: it’s part of a broader post-Dobbs strategy where abortion-ban states attempt to regulate conduct beyond their borders, especially around medication abortion and telehealth.

The Guardian captured this exact interstate tension around jurisdiction and enforcement in its coverage of the extradition attempt at The Guardian. This isn’t just a one-off vendetta. It’s a test balloon.

The alleged facts are still alleged, and Louisiana is acting like judge and jury anyway

Another detail that matters, because facts matter even when Louisiana is doing theater: the claim that Coeytaux “illegally” mailed abortion pills is an allegation embedded in Louisiana’s interpretation of its own law. The AP reporting makes clear the case hasn’t been adjudicated, and the allegations are what’s driving the indictment, not a trial verdict, per AP News.

There’s also a personal narrative in the court filings involving the Louisiana woman, Rosalie Markezich, who alleges she felt pressured and didn’t want to take the medication, as reported by Louisiana outlet WAFB at wafb.com. Whatever anyone thinks of that claim, it doesn’t justify Louisiana turning extradition into a culture-war battering ram aimed at California.

And if you’re wondering why they’re targeting providers and pills: because medication abortion is scalable. It routes around their bans. It’s modern health care meeting a medieval legislature, and the legislature is panicking.

Blue-state governors are drawing a line and Louisiana hates it

This whole mess also comes with an obvious subtext: Louisiana already tried a similar move against a New York physician, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul refused extradition under New York’s shield laws, according to AP News. So Louisiana is basically speedrunning the same humiliation in a different state, hoping someone blinks.

Newsom didn’t blink.

That’s the point of a shield law. You don’t pass it as a symbolic yard sign and then crumble the first time some AG from a forced-birth state sends a scary-looking packet of paper. You pass it so your residents, your doctors, and your institutions know the state actually has their back.

What happens now: a slow-motion constitutional knife fight, probably

Louisiana can keep trying to escalate, but they run into the fundamental reality that extradition involves cooperation. California isn’t obligated to help Louisiana criminalize conduct that California protects, and Newsom’s decision is a direct expression of that.

There’s also been procedural noise about whether California had received a “formal extradition request” at certain points, which only adds to the sense that Louisiana is flailing around for leverage, as noted in reporting cited by KPLC.

If Louisiana tries to litigate around this, the battlefield turns into courts wrestling with interstate conflict, telemedicine, mail delivery, and the boundaries of state criminal jurisdiction. That’s the bigger national stakes: whether abortion-ban states can functionally extend their bans outward by threatening providers who don’t live there.

Newsom is betting, correctly, that California shouldn’t become a compliance office for Louisiana’s forced-birth regime.

Daddy behavior: protecting providers, protecting access, making the bullies cope

A lot of politicians do “values” as branding. Newsom does it as governance. He issued Executive Order N-12-22 back in the post-Dobbs scramble to prevent exactly this kind of cross-border persecution, and he’s using the authority of his office to enforce it now, per gov.ca.gov.

Meanwhile, Louisiana’s leadership is out here trying to criminalize the distribution of FDA-approved medications through an online health care pathway, then demanding California deliver a doctor like a UPS package. That’s not public safety. That’s a tantrum with a badge.

And honestly, Newsom is the kind of governor who treats these tantrums the way they deserve to be treated: with a firm hand, a signed rejection, and the political equivalent of closing the door in their face.