New York doctor indicted in Louisiana for sending abortion pills there
A state grand jury in Louisiana has indicted a New York doctor for providing abortion pills to a Louisiana resident. The case appears to be the first time criminal charges have been filed against an abortion provider for sending pills into a state with an abortion ban.
The charges were brought against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who was operating under New York’s telemedicine abortion shield law, which stipulates that New York authorities will not cooperate with prosecutions or other legal actions filed against New York abortion providers by other states.
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Telemedicine abortion shield laws, which have been adopted by eight states so far, have become a significant avenue for providing access to abortion for women in states with bans without requiring them to leave their state. Doctors, nurse practitioners and other health care providers in states with shield laws have been sending more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to states with abortion bans or restrictions.
Legal experts said the case ratchets up the legal wars over abortion and will almost certainly end up in federal court and possibly the Supreme Court. It is expected to become a major test of whether states can apply criminal laws to people acting outside their borders.
The charges mark a new chapter in an escalating showdown, between states that ban abortion and those that want to protect and expand access to it, since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the national right to abortion.
Federal courts will have to sort out “where the line will be drawn and even which precedents the courts will be willing to overrule,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor and abortion expert at the University of California, Davis. “It’s not clear what will happen.”
The Louisiana indictment, by a grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish, follows what is believed to be the first civil suit filed against an abortion provider in a shield-law state. That case was filed in December by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also against Carpenter, for prescribing and sending pills to a woman in Texas.
On Friday, Tony Clayton, the district attorney who oversees West Baton Rouge, said, “I just don’t know under what theory could a doctor be thinking that you should ship your pills to Louisiana to abort our citizens’ babies.”
In response to the charges, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York pledged “to do everything I can to protect this doctor and allow her to continue the work that she’s doing that is so essential.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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