Legal Troubles: New York Physician Charged for Providing Abortion Pill in Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. — An indictment was handed down by a Louisiana grand jury on Friday against a New York physician for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill online in Louisiana, a Deep South state known for having one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the United States.

The grand jury at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge charged Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her company Nightingale Medical, PC, and a third individual with criminal abortion through the use of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony offense.

This particular case seems to represent the first scenario where a doctor is facing criminal charges for allegedly sending abortion pills to a different state following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which consequently allowed states to implement strict anti-abortion legislation.

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.

The indictment comes just months after Louisiana became the first state with a law to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol 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,” 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.

“Make no mistake, since Roe v Wade was overturned, we’ve witnessed a disturbing pattern of interference with women’s rights,” the Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine, where Carpenter is one of the founders, said in a statement. “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.”

Friday’s indictment could be the first direct test of New York’s shield laws, which are intended to protect prescribers who use telehealth to provide abortion pills to patients in states where abortion is banned.

“We always knew that overturning Roe v. Wade wasn’t the end of the road for anti-abortion politicians. That’s why I worked with the Legislature to pass nation-leading laws to protect providers and patients,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a prepared release.

Attorney General Letitia James, who would enforce the shield law, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Pills have become the most common means of abortion in the U.S., accounting for nearly two-thirds of them by 2023. They’re 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.

___

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press reporter Michael Hill in Albany, New York, also contributed.