(The Center Square) – A Louisiana sheriff is vowing to defy a state law that bans abortion by refusing to jail anyone arrested for violations.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson issued a statement on Thursday announcing she will refuse to accept any person into custody at the Orleans Justice Center who is arrested for violating the state’s 2006 “trigger law,” which bans abortions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Our community elected me to bring progressive change to our jail, not bring us back to the days before Roe v. Wade,” Hutson said. “I stand with our district attorney and city council in saying we will not use the limited resources of our offices to criminalize a women’s right to choose or a physician’s duty of care.”
The announcement followed a New Orleans City Council meeting on Thursday, when members voted 6-0 to approve a resolution asking the city’s police, prosecutors and other law enforcement not to use municipal resources to aid enforcement of the state’s abortion ban.
“The city of New Orleans recognizes that reproductive rights are human rights and embraces the tenets of equality, dignity, autonomy, access to critical health care information, bodily integrity and respect for private life with the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, without discrimination, as well as the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the resolution read.
“The city of New Orleans has a responsibility to protect its residents from any violation of their human rights and any criminalization of the free exercise thereof.”
It’s unclear what, if any, impact the resolution will have on women seeking abortions or medical professionals who perform the procedure. Attorney General Jeff Landry has vowed to hold the latter criminally liable despite an ongoing legal challenge.
“The temporary restraining order does not – and cannot – immunize medical providers from liability from criminal conduct,” Landry wrote in a letter to Louisiana State Medical Society Executive Vice President Jeff Williams on June 29. “Louisiana medical providers should not fall prey to breathless media reports of injunctions. Subject to certain exceptions, abortion is a criminal offense in the state of Louisiana, and it has been since last Friday.
“It is incumbent on this office to advise you that any medical provider who would perform or has performed an elective abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs is jeopardizing his or her liberty and medical license,” Landry wrote.
A New Orleans judge imposed a temporary restraining order three days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuit brought by a Shreveport abortion clinic and abortion advocates, but the judge sided with Landry in a hearing on Friday, agreeing that the proper venue for the case is East Baton Rouge Parish.
The Friday ruling dissolves a temporary restraining order that allowed the state’s three abortion clinics to reopen. Plaintiffs in the case allege Louisiana laws that ban abortions in nearly all circumstances, except if a mother’s life is at risk or the child will not survive after birth, are unclear both in terms of exceptions and when it takes effect. Landry argues the plaintiffs are “willfully misreading clear terms in the law in an attempt to manufacture arguments that the statutes are unconstitutionally vague.”
It is possible an East Baton Rouge judge could impose another restraining order to block the law, which provides up to a 15-year prison term for doctors who perform abortions, as the case moves forward.
Any decision in the case is expected to be appealed.
The Louisiana Supreme Court this week voted 4-2 to deny a request from Landry and the Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Courtney Phillips to intervene in the case “at this preliminary stage of proceedings.”
It’s one thing that the Left desires to defund and reform law enforcement agencies. It is quite another that the lawless assume positions where they are supposed to enforce the law and protect citizens.
So the sheriff has decided not to follow the law. That is an open invitation for all citizens to not follow any law they want to. Speeding limits no longer apply, stop signs are optional, paying for goods including gasoline is optional, etc.
we have that behavior already in my town
IF she’s refusing to enforce the law, THAT MUST MEAN the oath of office she swore, when she was sworn in as a Sheriff, was PERJURY. SO fire her immediately!
“The city of New Orleans has a responsibility to protect its residents from any violation of their human rights and any criminalization of the free exercise thereof.”
Exactly what human right gives a woman the right to kill her unborn baby? What about the Baby’s human rights?
The woman’s body ends at the end of the baby’s umbilical cord and the baby’s body begins. It is NOT YOUR BODY THAT YOU ARE KILLING!
If something has a heartbeat it is alive. To stop that heartbeat is to Kill/Murder.
#6 of the 10 Commandments of God – “Thou Shalt Not Kill/Murder”
SO! Lots of liberals in the justice system no longer regard their duty as upholding laws they disagree with! Loads of DAs, state AGs and the DOJ no longer have those scruples about the law.
Can’t or will not honor and uphold your oath of office, then resign and do that now or BE REMOVED.
Better yet, CRIMINALLY CHARGED WITH AIDING and abetting every criminal act perpetrated UNDER THEIR WATCH.
Sounds like the voting citizens in all those places need to either recall those officials that refuse to enforce the laws, or to defeat them in the next election. The left wing liberal democrats are destroying this country, and they don’t even seem to care. This powder keg that is the United States of America is getting ready to explode and the second American revolution that some have been expecting for years now will begin, and when the dust settles this country will have been forever divided. Sad!
It’s her right. Of course she will have to suffer the consequences of her actions. But she’s probably a democrap.
No it’s not. NO SHERIFF has the right, to say “I REFUSE to enforce the laws”.. NONE..
If this so-called Sheriff won’t enforce the state laws on abortion then she’s a dam*ed hypocrite for arresting anyone for violating any laws. After all if no penalties are enforced for breaking one law then why should they be enforced for breaking any others?
And if she refuses to follow the law, she should be immediately FIRED!
jail her!