Texas and Louisiana cases against a New York doctor over abortion pills sets up a showdown over shield laws designed to protect abortion providers.

A New York doctor’s alleged decision to send abortion pills to patients in Texas and Louisiana has pitted the Empire State’s shield law against the two conservative states’ abortion bans, which are among the strictest in the country.

Margaret Carpenter, based in New Paltz, New York, has been indicted for prescribing abortion pills to a person in Louisiana — where nearly all abortions are illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. It isn’t the only legal threat she faces: In December,