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A New York doctor was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury on Friday for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill online in the deep south state, which has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country.
Grand jurors at the district court for the parish of West Baton Rouge issued an indictment against Dr Margaret Carpenter; her company, Nightingale Medical PC; and the mother of a minor who was allegedly provided with the abortion pill, according to a New Orleans public radio station. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.
The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state – at least since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to ban abortion.
Carpenter was also sued by the Texas attorney general in December under similar allegations of sending pills to that state. That case did not involve criminal charges.
Carpenter did not immediately return a message, but the Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine, an organization she co-founded, issued a statement condemning the Louisiana case as “the latest in a series of threats that jeopardizes women’s access to reproductive healthcare throughout this country.
“Make no mistake, since Roe v Wade was overturned, we’ve witnessed a disturbing pattern of interference with women’s rights,” the statement continued. “It’s no secret the United States has a history of violence and harassment against abortion providers, and this state-sponsored effort to prosecute a doctor providing safe and effective care should alarm everyone.”
The indictment comes just months after Louisiana became the first state with a law to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol – pills commonly used in medical abortions – as “controlled dangerous substances”. The drugs are still allowed, but medical personnel have to go through extra steps to access them.
Under the legislation, if someone knowingly possesses mifepristone or misoprostol without a valid prescription for any purpose, they could be fined up to $5,000 and sent to jail for one to five years. The law carves out protections for pregnant women who obtain the drug without a prescription to take on their own.
“I have said it before and I will say it again: we will hold individuals accountable for breaking the law,” the Louisiana attorney general, Liz Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday.
Since the fall of Roe v Wade, Louisiana has had a near-total abortion ban, without any exceptions for rape or incest. Under the law, physicians convicted of performing an illegal abortion, including one with pills, face up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines and the loss of their medical license.
In an interview with Talk Louisiana, the district attorney Tony Clayton, a prosecutor on the case, said the minor’s mother gave her the pill. “The minor child was home alone, felt that she had to take the pill because of what her mother told her,” Clayton said.
Friday’s indictment could be the first direct test of the ability of New York’s “shield law” to defend doctors from criminal prosecution. In the years after Roe fell, New York became one of a handful of blue states that passed such shield laws, which are intended to protect prescribers who use telehealth to provide abortion pills to patients in states where abortion is banned.
“This cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American,” Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who would enforce the shield law that could protect Carpenter from out-of-state prosecution, said in a statement. “We will not allow bad actors to undermine our providers’ ability to deliver critical care.”
In the Talk Louisiana interview, Clayton acknowledged the New York shield law but said he thought he would “get over” it.
“If that doctor were to travel to a state that has reciprocity with Louisiana, then that presents an issue for the doctor,” Clayton said. “I will seek a warrant and use whatever laws we have in place to effectively have a warrant.”
Pills have become the most common means of abortion in the US, accounting for nearly two-thirds of them by 2023. They are also at the center of political and legal action over abortion. In January, one judge let three states continue to challenge federal government approvals for how one of the drugs usually involved can be prescribed.
