Minnesota demands respect for its criminal laws while refusing cooperation when pro-life states seek to enforce theirs

WASHINGTON — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s demand that Texas extradite ICE agent Christian Castro has exposed the selective view of interstate law enforcement embedded in Minnesota’s abortion shield law, National Right to Life said today.

Last week, Ellison sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott to compel Castro’s extradition to Minnesota, where Castro faces state criminal charges arising from an alleged January shooting. Ellison argued that extradition is a mandatory constitutional obligation and that the state receiving a request may not refuse simply because its officials disagree with the prosecution.

“The Constitution requires it,” Ellison said during the August 18 press conference. “We are clear this is not accidental. This is a choice.” He also declared that the agent had been charged in Minnesota and “must face justice in Minnesota.”

Those principles stand in sharp contrast to Minnesota’s Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, enacted in 2023. The law directs Minnesota officials not to surrender a person for acts committed or services provided in Minnesota involving abortion or other broadly defined “reproductive health care,” even when an abortionist sends abortion drugs into another state in violation of that state’s laws. Minnesota also restricts cooperation with related out-of-state subpoenas, arrest warrants, investigations, and judgments.

Minnesota’s own attorney general’s office describes civil and criminal subpoenas, judgments, and extradition requests issued outside Minnesota against people who performed “reproductive health care services” in the state as generally unenforceable in Minnesota. Ellison has not been called upon to reject an extradition request involving an abortionist, but the law he defends is designed to produce that result in an appropriate case.

New York has already put the shield-law policy into practice. In 2025, Louisiana charged New York abortionist Margaret Carpenter with violating Louisiana law by prescribing abortion drugs for a pregnant minor in Louisiana. New York Governor Kathy Hochul refused Louisiana’s extradition request, declaring that she would not sign it “not now, not ever.” In a separate civil case involving abortion drugs sent to Texas, New York officials refused to enforce a Texas judgment against Carpenter.

“Attorney General Ellison insists that another state must respect Minnesota’s charging decision without substituting its own political judgment,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Yet blue-state shield laws embrace precisely that refusal when an abortionist sends abortion drugs into a pro-life state. They demand cooperation for the laws they favor while creating barriers to cooperation for laws protecting unborn children and their mothers.”

National Right to Life takes no position on ICE, immigration policy, or the merits of the criminal charges against Castro. However, Ellison’s arguments reveal a double standard: interstate cooperation is described as a constitutional imperative when Minnesota seeks to prosecute, but as something Minnesota may obstruct when another state seeks accountability for an abortion performed in violation of its laws.

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of affiliates in each of the 50 states, is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.