NY doctor faces charges in Louisiana for prescribing abortion meds online

A New York doctor has been indicted on criminal charges by a grand jury in Louisiana for allegedly prescribing abortion medication online to a Louisiana resident in April.

Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices in New Paltz, was charged Friday with criminal abortion by means of abortion inducing drugs.

Abortions are banned in Louisiana with limited exceptions if the mother’s life is at risk, making it one of the most restrictive states in the country.

If convicted, Carpenter could face up to 15 years in prison and up to $200,000 in fines.

Carpenter is the co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which advocates for clinicians’ right to prescribe abortion pills online and send them through the mail. That method of accessing pills became legal under the Biden administration, although other online groups previously sent pills to restricted states before it was legal.

In a statement, ACT said the Louisiana indictment is the “latest in a series of threats that jeopardizes women’s access to reproductive health care throughout this country.”

This isn’t the first time Carpenter has gotten in legal trouble for prescribing abortion pills over state lines. The Texas attorney general sued Carpenter last month for a similar offense.

Carpenter’s medical practice, Nightingale Medical, PC, was also named in the indictment. Ten grand jurors in the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge unanimously voted to bring the criminal charges. A warrant was ordered for her arrest.

The Texas suit against Carpenter was the first to challenge New York’s “shield laws,” which are designed to protect clinicians who provide abortion care to out-of-state patients that would be legal in New York.

The shield laws, which were passed after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, bar local courts and officials from cooperating with out-of-state investigations into clinicians for providing protected abortion care, and bar the governor from agreeing to extradition demands.

Other abortion-friendly states have passed similar laws.

In a statement on the indictment, Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “It’s more critical than ever for states to step up and protect reproductive freedom — and I’ll never back down from this fight.”

“This cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American," New York state Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement on Friday. "We will not allow bad actors to undermine our providers’ ability to deliver critical care.”

In a statement, the ACT said it stands behind New York’s shield laws, which enable licensed health care providers to “successfully deliver reproductive health care to patients in under-resourced areas nationwide.”

The indictment in Louisiana comes shortly after the state reclassified the two pills involved in medication abortion as “controlled dangerous substances,” which are subject to a higher level of restriction.