State attorneys general wield considerable power as the chief litigator and law enforcement officer in their state. They can make a real difference for people seeking abortion care or self-managing their abortions.
Legal protections for people who self-manage abortion are murky, and while self-managed abortion isn’t explicitly illegal in most states, that hasn’t stopped police and politicians from attempting to criminalize it. “In this moment, when the state itself seems to be the primary danger for people seeking abortions, those abortion support networks remain very important,” Laura Huss, senior researcher for If/When/How, told Prism. “Criminalization does not belong in health care.”
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Attorneys general can shield their constituents from that criminalization by prohibiting law enforcement resources from being used to prosecute self-managed abortion care and urging district attorneys to issue nonprosecution policies.
Anti-abortion advocates are using every trick in their playbook to go after self-managed abortion. It would be negligent if we didn’t try every tool at our disposal to counter their attacks—especially now that voters have spoken in states of every political stripe across the country.
