Left: FILE — Mifepristone tablets are seen in a Planned Parenthood clinic Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Ames, Iowa (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File). Right: FILE — New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press briefing, Feb. 16, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File).
A doctor in New York is facing criminal charges for allegedly providing abortion medication to the mother of a pregnant minor residing in Louisiana, where the procedure is banned under nearly all circumstances.
Margaret D. Carpenter, and her practice Nightingale Medical, were named in a grand jury indictment filed Friday by West Baton Rouge Parish Tony Clayton, according to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime. Carpenter is based in New Paltz, located some 80 miles north of New York City.
Carpenter, the one-page indictment says, “on or about April 5, 2024, did knowingly cause an abortion to occur by means of delivering, dispensing, distributing, or providing a pregnant [woman] with an abortion-inducing drug,” the one-page indictment says. Doing so was “[c]ontrary to the law of the State of Louisiana and against the peace and dignity of the same,” the indictment adds.
According to Baton Rouge ABC affiliate WBRZ, the medication was ordered by a woman whose minor daughter was pregnant. The station reported that the mother, who allegedly made her daughter take the mifepristone she ordered, was also named in the indictment but was not charged.
The mother’s name did not appear on the indictment reviewed by Law&Crime.
Louisiana’s stringent abortion ban took effect in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, upending decades of precedent and essentially wiping out abortion rights for women nationwide. Several states, including Louisiana, had so-called “trigger laws” that were set to take effect should such a reversal ever occur.
New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a statement unequivocally standing behind Carpenter.
“Abortion care is health care,” the statement said. “The criminalization of abortion care is a direct and brazen attack on Americans’ bodily autonomy and their right to reproductive freedom.”
James called the move a “cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers,” adding that the indictment is “unjust and un-American.”
“We will not allow bad actors to undermine our providers’ ability to deliver critical care,” James’ statement also said. “Medication abortion is safe, effective, and necessary, and New York will ensure that it remains available to all Americans who need it.”
Similarly, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the news of the indictment “outrageous” and said that the Empire State would not extradite Carpenter to Louisiana.
“I will never, under any circumstances, turn this doctor over to the state of Louisiana under any extradition request,” she said in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday. The post also noted that New York “will remain a safe harbor.”
Hochul, a Democrat, said that the indictment is “exactly what we feared” — specifically, an effort by Republicans to enforce a “national abortion ban that will deny reproductive freedom” to American women nationwide.
“We must stand firm and fight this, and I will do everything I can to protect this doctor and allow her to continue the work that she is doing that’s so essential,” Hochul added.
The girl at the center of the indictment, Clayton said, was looking forward to giving birth, WBRZ reported.
“She was a minor and … she was excited,” Clayton reportedly said outside the West Baton Rouge Parish Courthouse. “She had planned a reveal party. She had wanted to have this baby.”
The girl was apparently alone when the drug took effect, WBRZ reported, and suffered complications.
“She called 911 and an ambulance rushed her to the hospital and they were able to save her life,” Clayton said, according to the station. The prosecutor also compared mifepristone — which studies have long shown to be safe and effective — to significantly more dangerous and deadly drugs, including opioids, which have been the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. for several years.
“To ship a pill from another state is equivalent to me to shipping fentanyl or any other type of drug that ends up in the mouths and stomachs of our minor kids,” Clayton said, according to WBRZ.
“[T]his doctor has a date with Louisiana, Louisiana justice,” Clayton also said.
It was not clear how far along the pregnancy was, WBRZ reported. The mother was not charged with coercion, despite allegedly forcing her minor daughter to take the medication.
A spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told Law&Crime in an email that state authorities are assisting in the prosecution.
“It is illegal to send abortion pills into this State and it’s illegal to coerce another into having an abortion,” Murrill said in the statement. “I have said it before and I will say it again: We will hold individuals accountable for breaking the law.”
Murrill’s office said that the allegations in the case “have nothing to do with reproductive health care,” but that it’s a matter of “coercion.”
“This is about forcing somebody to have an abortion who didn’t want one,” the statement said.
The attorney general for the Pelican State also accused Hochul of “cheerleading for the alleged coerced abortion of a young girl.”
“It’s not ‘reproductive health care,”” Murrill added. “It’s force.”
Carpenter is also the target of a lawsuit by the state of Texas, which alleges that the doctor provided abortion drugs to patients in the Lone Star State in contravention of abortion restrictions there.
