A New York doctor was indicted by a grand jury in Louisiana on Friday for prescribing the abortion pill to a teenager who lives there via telemedicine, according to the governor’s office.
Grand jurors in West Baton Rouge indicted Hudson Valley-based physician Margaret Daley Carpenter and her company, Nightingale Medical, for criminal abortion after prescribing mifepristone, one of two pills used in a medication abortion, which is a felony in Louisiana. The teen’s mother was also indicted, according to a report from Reuters.
The indictment in Louisiana follows similar allegations against Carpenter in Texas. The physician was sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in civil court at the end of last year for allegedly prescribing the abortion pill to a young woman there. Carpenter serves as the medical director of the nonprofit Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which provides legal and technical assistance to clinicians who use telemedicine to treat patients across state lines.
Carpenter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
The indictment is seemingly the first criminal accusation against a clinician who prescribed the abortion pill across state lines since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. It comes a few months after Louisiana became the first state in the country to deem the abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol “controlled substances.”
The action could test New York’s shield laws to protect doctors who offer abortion services; Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation in 2023 to protect reproductive health providers who provide legal health services to patients in other states from extradition, arrest or other legal actions.
State officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James signaled that they will fight the indictment.
“This cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American,” James said in a statement Friday. “We will not allow bad actors to undermine our providers’ ability to deliver critical care.”
Hochul said in a statement that it’s “more critical than ever” for states to step up to protect reproductive freedom.
