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District attorneys in more than 10 states where abortion is now banned or likely will be soon have committed to not prosecute people for obtaining abortions, following the Supreme Court\u2019s Friday decision overturning Roe v. Wade<\/em>. <\/p>\n In a joint statement Friday, more than 80 elected prosecutors argued that doing so would abuse their offices\u2019 limited criminal justice resources, though many are from states that are supportive of abortion rights.<\/p>\n \u201cNot all of us agree on a personal or moral level on the issue of abortion. But we stand together in our firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions,\u201d their statement says<\/a>. \u201cAs such, we decline to use our offices\u2019 resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n They argue that criminalizing abortion will make the procedure less safe by pushing it underground and isolating those who need it from law enforcement, medical, and social resources, as well as force medical providers to make \u201cimpossible decisions.\u201d That\u2019s particularly true in cases of sexual abuse, rape, incest, human trafficking, or domestic violence.<\/p>\n \u201cProsecutors, police, and our medical partners cannot do our jobs when many victims and witnesses of crime or other emergencies are unwilling to work with us for fear that their private medical decisions will be criminalized,\u201d they said. <\/p>\n District attorneys are becoming a last line of defense for abortion rights as states start to activate preexisting \u201ctrigger\u201d laws that were designed to outlaw abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe<\/em>. But there are also limits to how much they can resist bans and shield abortion providers from criminal and financial liability. <\/p>\n In some states, those district attorneys will be able to use their extensive legal discretion to decide whether abortion bans will be enforced at the local level. That\u2019s the case in Louisiana, where a trigger ban went into immediate effect<\/a> Friday that imposes maximum criminal penalties for doctors or others who terminate pregnancies of $200,000 fines and 15 years in jail for late-term abortions. <\/p>\n \u201cDistrict attorneys in Louisiana have unbridled discretion to decide what sorts of cases to prosecute and which sorts of offenses to let go unprosecuted,\u201d Loyola University New Orleans law professor Dane Ciolino told<\/a> WWL-TV. <\/p>\nDistrict attorneys have more power to shield abortion providers in some states than in others<\/h3>\n