A Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York doctor on Friday for allegedly prescribing abortion medication using telehealth services to a resident of the Southern state, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. The case takes direct aim at the most common method of abortion in the U. Margaret Carpenter, her company and a third defendant, according to court records. The defendants are charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, which is a felony.
The indictment is among the first direct challenges to so-called shield laws that many blue states, including New York, have adopted in recent years to protect prescribers who use telehealth to prescribe abortion medication following the fall of Roe v. Wade in New York Attorney General Letitia James vowed in a statement Friday to ensure Carpenter and others who prescribe the pills continue to be protected.
Medication abortion is safe, effective, and necessary, and New York will ensure that it remains available to all Americans who need it. WAFB first reported the indictment on Friday. Carpenter is also the target of a civil lawsuit, brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton , for prescribing abortion pills to a patient in Texas, which like Louisiana has a near-total ban on abortion.
Carpenter did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through her company. While the medications β which are frequently used to treat miscarriages, postpartum hemorrhage and other health crises β can still be prescribed, there are now added steps required to access them. Medical groups in the state warn that policy is leading to dangerous delays in time-sensitive care.
But activists on both sides of the abortion fight have long predicted that the conflict between different state laws β with many patients crossing state lines for the procedure or turning to telemedicine providers like Carpenter β would eventually return to the high court. So I think that's a battle that will brew. Abortion rights supporters counter that it is Texas and Louisiana that are trying to undermine New York by prosecuting a doctor there for doing something that is legal where she practices.
