BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A New York doctor was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury on Friday for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill online in the Deep South state, which has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country.
Grand jurors at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge issued an indictment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter; her company, Nightingale Medical, PC; and a third person. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.
The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to have strict anti-abortion laws.
Carpenter was also sued by the Texas attorney general in December under similar allegations of sending pills to that state. That case did not involve criminal charges.
Carpenter did not immediately return a message.
The indictment comes just months after Louisiana became the first state with a law to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances.” The drugs are still allowed, but medical personnel have to go through extra steps to access them.
Under the legislation, if someone knowingly possesses mifepristone or misoprostol without a valid prescription for any purpose, they could be fined up to $5,000 and sent to jail for one to five years. The law carves out protections for pregnant women who obtain the drug without a prescription to take on their own.
Sara Cline And Geoff Mulvihill, The Associated Press
