Doctors Will Keep Mailing Abortion Pills Across State Lines Despite Historic Indictment
When the news broke on Jan. 31 that a New York physician had been indicted for shipping abortion medications to a woman in Louisiana, it stoked fear across the network of doctors and medical clinics who engage in similar work. On Jan. 31, Carpenter became the first U.S. doctor criminally charged for providing abortion pills across state lines — a medical practice that grew after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on June 24, 2022, which overturned Roe.
The Indictment of Dr. Margaret Carpenter
Carpenter was indicted alongside a Louisiana mother who allegedly received the mailed package and gave the pills prescribed by Carpenter to her minor daughter. According to an interview with Tony Clayton, the Louisiana local district attorney prosecuting the case, the teen wanted to keep the pregnancy and called 911 after taking the pills. When police responded, they learned about the medication, which carried the prescribing doctor’s name. The charges carry a possible five-year prison sentence.
In response to the case, Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, signed an extradition warrant for Carpenter, stating she “must face extradition to Louisiana, where she can stand trial and justice will be served.” However, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, countered by confirming she was refusing to extradite Carpenter. “Louisiana has changed their laws, but that has no bearing on the laws here in the state of New York,” Hochul said.
Reactions From Healthcare Providers
“It’s scary. It’s frustrating,” said Angel Foster, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project. At this project, physicians use telehealth to prescribe and mail pills to people who live in states that ban or restrict abortion. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion providers like her had been expecting prosecution or another kind of legal challenge from states with abortion bans.
Kohar Der Simonian, medical director for Maine Family Planning, added: “It just hit home that this is real, like this could happen to anybody, at any time now, which is scary.” While her clinic doesn’t mail pills into states with bans, it treats patients who travel from those states to Maine for abortion care.
Overview of Abortion Legislation and Shield Laws
The following data outlines the current state of abortion restrictions and provider protections across the U.S.:
- 12 states have enacted near-total abortion bans since the Dobbs decision.
- 10 states have outlawed the procedure after a certain point in pregnancy, but before a fetus is viable.
- 8 states (New York, Maine, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) have passed “shield” laws to protect doctors who mail abortion pills out of state and block extradition.