A doctor from New York was charged by a Louisiana grand jury on Friday for reportedly prescribing an abortion pill online. The doctor reportedly issued the pill to a patient in a Deep South state that enforces one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the U.S., per CBS News.
The grand jurors at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge handed down an indictment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her practice, Nightingale Medical, PC, and another individual. All three face felony charges of criminal abortion related to the use of abortion-inducing medications. Prosecutors in Louisiana allege that a mother purchased the pill online and administered it to her child.
“The young child was told by the mother that she had to take the pill or else, and the child took the pill,”
District Attorney Tony Clayton said.
This case seems to mark the first occurrence of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state. Particularly since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which allowed states to implement strict anti-abortion laws.
“To ship a pill from another state is equivalent to me of shipping fentanyl or any other type of drugs over here that end up in the mouths and stomachs of our minor kids,”
Clayton said. In December, Carpenter faced a lawsuit from the Texas attorney general on similar allegations of distributing pills to that state. However, this case did not include any criminal charges.
The indictment might serve as the first direct test of New York’s shield laws, which aim to protect prescribers who utilize telehealth to supply abortion pills to patients in states that have banned the procedure. In 2023, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation that shields doctors from lawsuits filed in other states.
“I will never under any circumstances turn this doctor over to the state of Louisiana under any extradition request,”
Hochul said in a video posted to social media.
“I will do everything I can to protect this doctor and allow her to continue the work that she’s doing that is so essential.”
#Clique, what are your thoughts?
