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A New York doctor broke Louisiana’s abortion law by using an online platform to prescribe abortion pills to a minor living in Baton Rouge, but instead of backing up a fellow state, New York politicians made it easier for other doctors to break the same law — and get away with it.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, enacted legislation on Monday that is aimed at hiding the identities of medical professionals who prescribe abortion medication to patients located in states with strict abortion laws.
This decision follows an incident in which a New York physician was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a minor who lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This case marks one of the first known criminal charges against a doctor for prescribing abortion medication across state lines since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The newly implemented New York law is intended to shield physicians who prescribe abortion pills across state lines by allowing them to request that their personal names be omitted from medication labels, providing only the name of their medical practice.
This legislative action was prompted by a Louisiana grand jury’s indictment of New York physician Dr. Margaret Carpenter and her medical practice for allegedly prescribing abortion medication to a minor via an online platform.
Hochul has also declared that she will refuse to approve any extradition request from Louisiana that would send Carpenter to Louisiana to face charges.
Louisiana has one of the strictest abortion laws in the country, banning the practice altogether except in the case of the life of the mother, a medical emergency, or lethal fetal anomaly. New York allows abortion for any reason up and including 24 weeks’ gestation, and beyond that if the woman’s “health or pregnancy is at risk.”
According to Louisiana prosecutors, the minor had been planning a gender reveal party for her baby before her mother conspired with Carpenter to obtain the pills. The girl experienced a medical emergency after taking the medication and required hospital treatment. The stage of her pregnancy at the time remains unclear. Authorities identified Dr. Carpenter through the prescription label, and the minor’s mother was also charged.
Louisiana District Attorney Tony Clayton stated that Carpenter’s arrest warrant is valid nationwide, meaning she could be detained in any state with strict abortion regulations. The state enforces a near-total prohibition on abortion, including medication-induced procedures. Physicians found guilty of providing abortion services face severe penalties, including up to 15 years of imprisonment, fines as high as $200,000, and the revocation of their medical license.
In response, Hochul also announced plans to advocate for additional legislation that would require pharmacists to comply with doctors’ requests to omit their names from prescription labels for abortion medication.
Gov. Hochul’s new legislation is part of a broader trend in which states enact so-called “shield laws” to protect abortion providers from legal consequences in states where abortion is restricted or banned.
Critics note that these shield laws raise constitutional questions about the limits of state sovereignty, pointing to the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause (Article IV, Section 1), which mandates that states respect the judicial proceedings of other states. Shield laws that effectively nullify legal decisions from other jurisdictions could lead to significant interstate legal battles.
This policy could also place pharmacies in a concerning legal position. Patients deserve to know who is responsible for their prescriptions, particularly for drugs with known risks. In addition, hiding a provider’s identity could hinder medical accountability in cases of malpractice or adverse reactions.
At present, more than 20 states have enacted laws restricting abortion, with 12 of those implementing a near-total ban.
The pro-life movement involves not only enacting laws to safeguard the unborn but also ensuring that those laws are effectively upheld. Abortion shield laws aim to impose abortion on states that oppose it. As such, pro-life supporters must remain vigilant to continue advocacy in these evolving cross-state battles, making its mission more relevant than ever.
Abortion pills are not magical; they don’t make a fetus simply disappear. The two-step regimen involves first killing the baby with Mifepristone by blocking the transfer of progesterone and then taking Misoprostol to physically expel the dead baby from the woman’s body. Even Planned Parenthood admits that this is a lengthy and painful process involving “a lot of bleeding and cramping.”
As seen from the fact that this Louisiana teen ended up in the ER, it’s also very risky. Not only does data from the FDA and peer-reviewed medical studies show this, but the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) has documented thousands of cases of severe complications from abortion pills, including hemorrhage, infection, and incomplete abortion, which often require surgical intervention. A 2015 study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology found that the complication rate for medication abortions was four times higher than that of first-trimester surgical abortions.
And yet, instead of increasing safety protocols around these pills, the Food and Drug Administration has actually loosened them. At one time, the abortion pills had to be physically given to a patient by a doctor in a medical office, clinic, or hospital; now, they can be prescribed online and mailed directly to a patient’s house.
Louisiana has every right and reason to ban medication abortions, but especially when prescribed by a doctor in a different state. In all her supposed compassion, Dr. Carpenter never actually examined the minor patient to determine the state or stage of her pregnancy and was unavailable for consultation when the teenager ended up in the ER. Now, Gov. Hochul wants to make it so other healthcare professionals, all of whom are willing to betray their ethical and medical obligations to their patient, can’t be identified or held accountable for engaging in illegal activity.
This is wrong on every possible level, and those New York officials who voted for this new law should be ashamed. They claim that their actions will save women’s lives, but in fact, they are risking the lives of women, while also encouraging and enabling doctors who hold a unique position of trust in our society to disregard laws they don’t agree with.
The one question that remains is: Who will bear the larger moral responsibility if an out-of-state patient ends up in the hospital or dies from a medication abortion — the anonymous prescribing doctor or New York politicians?
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