What Are Abortion Shield Laws?

Abortion shield laws are in the spotlight as New York protects a doctor from charges in Louisiana and Texas. Dean Rebouché, who helped draft the first such bill in 2022, tells Time Magazine the cases “point to what we can expect moving forward for intense interstate conflict … given that Dobbs returned abortion to the states and a third of the country prohibits abortion from the earliest moments of pregnancy or before six weeks, just as many states have codified abortion rights in their constitutions and their state laws.”