A New York doctor has been indicted and charged by a grand jury for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill online in Louisiana, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.
A Louisiana grand jury in Baton Rouge charged doctor Margaret Carpenter, her company, Nightingale Medical PC, and a third person with the felony of criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs.
The case appears to be the first where criminal charges have been brought against a doctor allegedly sending abortion pills to another state since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The indictment comes months after Louisiana reclassified abortion pills as “controlled dangerous substances.” The pills are still legal, but medical professionals have to go through more steps to access and prescribe them.
Louisiana is one of 12 states where abortion is banned in almost all circumstances. The abortion pill, which is used in two-thirds of all procedures, has become a lightning rod in the debate on abortion because of its accessibility.
The case will also be a test of New York’s “shield laws,” which are meant to protect medical providers who prescribe pills to people in states where abortion is banned.
“That’s right: a doctor is being prosecuted for providing basic health care to her patient. We always knew that overturning Roe v. Wade wasn’t the end of the road for anti-abortion politicians,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
Letitia James, the New York Attorney General who will enforce the shield law, also criticized the indictment.
“This cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American,” she said in a statement. “We will not allow bad actors to undermine our providers’ ability to deliver critical care.”
Read it at CBS News
