In enabling a doctor to illegally send abortion pills to a pro-life state, Gov. Kathy Hochul is openly defying the Constitution’s mandate to respect Louisiana’s sovereignty and its right to govern abortion within its own borders.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, has announced that she will not comply with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s extradition request for a doctor who illegally prescribed abortion pills without ever speaking with the teen.
As we reported recently, Dr. Margaret Carpenter was indicted by a grand jury for sending abortion pills to the mother of the teenager in Louisiana. Carpenter is not licensed in Louisiana and sending the pills violated the state’s abortion laws.
The teen was planning a gender reveal party for the baby and wanted to have the child; however, the mother forced her to take the abortion pill Mifepristone. The teenager took the pill and had a medical emergency before calling 911 and being taken to the emergency room; the teen eventually recovered but her unborn child died.
Yesterday, Landry signed a warrant for Carpenter’s extradition, explaining in a video, “A minor in Louisiana got pregnant. She was excited to have a baby and was planning a gender reveal party. Her mom conspired with a NY doctor to get a chemical abortion pill in the mail and coerced her to take it. She ended up in the hospital. There is only one right answer in this situation: the doctor must face extradition to Louisiana where justice will be served. We owe this to the minor and the innocent life lost.”
Hochul answered the request by stating, “I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana. Not now. Not ever.”
She has commented on the case multiple times and repeatedly claimed that New York passed its shield laws because the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which Hochul argues was “the established law of the land for 49 years.”
“Louisiana has changed their laws, but that has no bearing on the laws here in the state of New York. Doctors take an oath to protect their patients. I took an oath of office to protect all New Yorkers. And I will uphold not only our Constitution but the laws of our land,” she said in a video.
During an interview with MSNBC, Hochul argued that Carpenter faces 15 years of jail time for “just being a doctor.”
She blamed the overturning of Roe v. Wade, saying, “We’ve got to stand up and fight and let these women know. And I’m sorry for the sisters in these states where they’re being repressed. But we should not allow government-mandated pregnancies. That’s what happens when women don’t have control over their own bodies.”
As Louisiana officials, including Attorney General Liz Murrill, have made clear, the teen was not a patient of Carpenter’s nor did she want to have an abortion. Carpenter and the teenager’s mother violated Louisiana’s laws against providing abortion pills for a coerced abortion.
“This child was NOT this doctor’s patient. She never met her, saw her, or knew anything about her. The child is a victim. @GovKathyHochul is protecting a drug dealer who victimized a child,” Murrill posted in a reply on X.
Meanwhile, Texas District Court Judge Bryan Gantt blocked Carpenter from sending abortion pills to Texas after Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against her for allegedly sending abortion pills to a Texas woman.
In that case, Carpenter sent abortion pills to a 20-year-old woman. After taking the pills the woman asked the father of the unborn child to take her to the emergency room due to “hemorrhage or severe bleeding.” The father did not know she had requested the pills or that she was pregnant. He found the pills at her home later and filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s office.
Gantt also fined Carpenter $100,000.
As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion laws are now decided by each state.
Telemedicine and the mailing of abortion drugs is a relatively new practice, and as such there is no clear-cut federal law or court precedent deciding this issue. There are, however, two clauses within the Constitution that Louisiana can use to support its authority to demand the extradition of Carpenter.
The first clause to discuss is the Full Faith and Credit Clause. The clause reads:
“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
In Louisiana, abortion is illegal except in certain circumstances. Coerced abortion is definitely illegal, and under Louisiana law, it is not legal for a person out of state to mail abortion pills to a Louisiana resident.
Thus, under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, New York should honor Louisiana’s laws; by passing its shield law, it has created a difficult legal situation.
The question of if and how the Full Faith and Credit applies will likely have to be decided by the Supreme Court.
However, the Extradition Clause within the Constitution also gives merit to Louisiana’s extradition request. It reads:
“A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.”
This is where the new practice of telemedicine creates an untested legal question that will have to be resolved. Typically, a person who commits a crime is physically in that state; Carpenter, however, broke Louisiana’s laws while physically in New York.
These are the key points to remember in this case:
- Carpenter is not licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana.
- Carpenter never spoke with the teenager nor examined her.
- The teenager did not want an abortion and was coerced to do so in a conspiracy between two adults: her mother and Carpenter.
- Abortion pills are dangerous and send many women to the emergency room.
- Carpenter sent a dangerous drug into a state where it is not legal to do so in order to induce an abortion, which is also not legal in that state.
This is not an issue of Louisiana attempting to regulate abortion in New York, as Carpenter is legally allowed to prescribe Mifepristone to patients who live in New York. Rather this is New York overriding Louisiana’s sovereignty and its right to govern abortion within its borders.
It is also essential to take into account Carpenter’s intentions. Carpenter is the co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which states on its website that the organization
“directly supports clinicians who make safe, timely, and affordable telemedicine abortion care available to patients in all 50 states. Medication abortion accounts for more than half of abortions performed in the U.S., making telemedicine care vital to closing the accessibility gap and empowering women and pregnant people to exercise their reproductive freedom.”
This organization helps doctors use FDA regulations and shield laws to intentionally thwart states that protect the lives of unborn children. Carpenter isn’t “just being a doctor”; she’s being an activist. She knows Louisiana and Texas’s laws on abortion, and she is trying to help doctors undermine those laws.
It is noteworthy that Carpenter didn’t attend her court hearing in Texas, and there was no response from her or her legal team.
Carpenter’s actions are illegal but so too are those who enable her, including New York officials. All are using shield laws to allow them to act to advance their ideological views. Carpenter and her company, Nightingale Medical PC, are free to profit off of women and use them for their political machinations.
And all of these doctors, activists, and politicians do it with absolutely no “compassion” or concern for the scores of women who will take these pills alone, without an examination and without telling anyone, and end up in the emergency room with hemorrhaging or other complications.
What’s more for all their talk about enabling the “freedom” of women, these practices are actually ensuring coerced abortion by abusers, rapists, and father and relatives who want mothers to have an abortion.
The Supreme Court will likely have to decide this case and whether the laws surrounding abortion telemedicine and shielding doctors from accountability and transparency are constitutional. Until then, states that promote abortion will be able to trample the sovereignty of states that protect life.
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