The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to have strict anti-abortion laws.
The fun part of that becomes, how will they know? Constant license plate tracking through cameras and subsequent information sharing across state PDs to catch, what in reality, is a political crime, and only illegal for brownie points with the electorate, or will they rely on more pointed surveillance waiting for the opportunity?
This actually could be done pathetically easily.
Just set up an alert in the license plate reader’s software to look for a NY plate 123-ABC, then just sit back and wait. Once the doctor’s car drives down a highway that triggers these readers off, it becomes pretty easy to track his movements. Then pull him over for illegally tinted windows or something and voila. As long as the software is capable of comparing the plate to a list of wanted plates in a database and sending out alerts when it finds one, which should be functionality included in even the most basic software, the problem wouldn’t be dedicating resources to finding him. It would just be a matter of sitting back and waiting.
And yes, the idea that you would be essentially trapped in your own state and facing potential capture, prosecution, felony charges, and loss of medical licenses if you travelled out of state, would itself be more than enough to make sure doctors refuse to send pills to red states.
I don’t think a New York doctor would be too upset about not traveling to the South
I don’t think the practice of it would be hard, it’s more the passing of information between depts. Open investigations get botched with info transfer, and people skate by with open warrants for “worse” charges than prescribing a medication some states don’t like. I don’t think the shortcoming is in the ability to do it, moreso the will. I do concede that maybe I’m underestimating the amount of red-faced cops who would love to be the arresting officer, but I’d hope they could find better uses of their time than this. I do continue to be surprised at things though, so maybe you’re right.
Again, assuming LPR software has even the most basic database functionality, the whole process can be entirely automated and void of human interaction at all once the plate is flagged. The biggest thing would be if they got a hit saying that NY plate 123-ABC is currently on I-95, would the state troopers bother heading out to pull him over? And if you’re the doctor, would you want to risk your own freedom taking the chance? And if the answer to that is no, then you’re essentially trapping yourself in your own state, or even your own area if you’re in a purple state where some counties are more willing to cooperate than others. And to the GOP, that in and of itself would be just fine. They’d still essentially win.
It isn’t about database functionality, it’s about information sharing across jurisdictions and state lines. There isn’t a national police force, different precincts use different methods. States have highway patrol, local PD, sheriff’s, etc. It isn’t just saying “look for plate NY-A447 338” and every camera across the nation checks for it. Additionally, not every Dept and precinct is going to have resources to throw at catching a random Dr because Louisiana is pissy about stuff. There also would, presumably, be some planned lack of cooperation across some states and potentially intra-state departments. Different places prioritize different crimes to chase. New York obviously won’t be extraditing him, and I imagine similarly for other Northeast states surround NY, as well as “blue” city precincts.
I’m sure the Dr is questioning traveling and stuff; but that’s wasn’t what I was trying to discuss; it was merely the concept of a national surveillance system monitoring one individual on behalf of a single state (or group of randomly spaced states) throwing resources after a political win, and the necessary cooperation across dozens and dozens of different state and local departments, in pursuit of this one individual.
