A Louisiana grand jury on Friday indicted a doctor from New York on charges of prescribing abortion pills that were forced upon a pregnant minor, a first-of-its-kind criminal case.
Local news reports indicate that a grand jury in Port Allen, Louisiana, indicted Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her practice, Nightingale Medical, and the minor’s mother, who prosecutors say coerced her daughter into a medication abortion.
Prosecutors say that the pregnant minor’s mother obtained the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol online from Carpenter, who shipped the medications to Louisiana where abortion is illegal.
District Attorney Tony Clayton told local news outlet WAFB that the child was “told by the mother that she had to take the pills or else,” and when she took the medication, she began to hemorrhage. Although it is unclear how far along she was in her pregnancy, the victim was admitted to the emergency room and lost her pregnancy.
The names and ages of the mother and daughter in the criminal case were not made public.
New York is one of the handful of states that has laws in place to shield healthcare providers from prosecution for prescribing abortion pills and mailing them across state lines into areas where the procedure is banned or severely restricted.
As of December 2023, 19% of all abortions in the United States were conducted via telehealth prescriptions, and an average of 5,900 abortions per month were conducted in states with near-total abortion bans or prohibitions on abortion after six weeks of gestation.
Kansas, Idaho, and Missouri are currently in litigation with several states that have so-called shield laws protecting doctors and other healthcare providers for facilitating abortions in states with prohibitions.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill commented on the case in her state via X, saying her office “will hold individuals accountable for breaking the law.”
In September, Louisiana passed legislation to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances, in part to mitigate against coerced abortions.
“It is illegal to send abortion pills into this State, and it’s illegal to coerce another into having an abortion,” wrote Murrill.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) responded with her own post on X that her office will not comply with the extradition request for Carpenter and that New York will “remain a safe harbor.”
“This is exactly the scenario we envisioned could happen and why I signed into law very tough shield laws, where I am proud to say I will never, under any circumstances, turn this doctor over to the state of Louisiana under any extradition requests,” Hochul said in a video address.
Hochul added that this is “exactly what we feared” and that it is indicative of how Republicans want a nationwide abortion ban.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration removed in-person screening requirements for mifepristone to allow patients to access the medication via telehealth. Before this action, patients needed to visit a doctor in person to determine the gestational age and placement of the pregnancy as part of the safety protocol.
Anti-abortion advocates contend that this case is a clear example of how the FDA’s decision to allow abortion pills by mail can be abused.
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“This case exposes how mail-order abortion drugs are fueling an epidemic of coercion, a new form of domestic violence against mothers and their babies,” said Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs for SBA Pro-Life America. “Women who never wanted an abortion to begin with are being assaulted and ending up in the emergency room.”
Health and human services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during his second Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday that President Donald Trump has instructed him to study the safety of mifepristone should he be confirmed.