TIT FOR TAT

Attorney General Wants to Hold New Orleans’ Funds Hostage for Defying Abortion Ban

Attorney General Jeff Landry claimed that city officials are acting in “open defiance of the will of the people of Louisiana.”

Louisiana’s Republican attorney general is so outraged that New Orleans would attempt to defy the state’s abortion ban that he’s asked for funds to be withheld from the city. Attorney General Jeff Landry’s ire stems from city officials’ recent declaration that they will not enforce the state’s near-total abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest. The Orleans Parish attorney general vowed not to prosecute abortion providers, and New Orleans police said that they will not investigate or arrest them, either. In his letter to the state’s treasurer, Landry said that the city is participating in “open defiance of the will of the people of Louisiana,” and that the Bond Commission should thus delay any funding applications and pause any funding that will “directly benefit” the city. An LSU survey released in April, however, demonstrated that Louisiana residents are almost evenly split on whether abortion should be legal in most cases.