Days after a New York doctor was accused of prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant teenager in Louisiana, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law on Monday to protect the names of doctors who write prescriptions for abortion drugs.
The new rule, which went into force right away, permits physicians to ask that their names be removed off abortion pill bottles and that the names of their medical practices be listed on the labels of medications instead.
The action followed the indictment of New York Dr. Margaret Carpenter and her business by a grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, on Friday for allegedly prescribing abortion drugs to a pregnant child via the internet.
At least since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, the case seems to be the first time a doctor has been charged with a crime for allegedly shipping abortion pills to another state.
Hochul, a Democrat, stated that she would not sign an extradition request to send Carpenter to Louisiana, claiming that the medicine label was where Louisiana authorities found the doctor’s identity.
At the bill signing, the governor declared that it would no longer occur after today.
After ingesting the prescription, the girl had a medical emergency, according to Louisiana prosecutors, and had to be sent to the hospital. How far along she was in her pregnancy is unknown. On Friday, the mother of the girl, who was also charged, surrendered herself to the police.
The prosecutor in the Louisiana case, District Attorney Tony Clayton, stated that Carpenter’s arrest warrant is nationwide and that she may be arrested in states that have laws against abortion.
Abortion is almost completely prohibited in Louisiana. Doctors who are found guilty of performing abortions, including those using pills, risk losing their medical license, up to 15 years in prison, and fines of up to $200,000.
Hochul stated that this year, she would work to pass more laws requiring pharmacists to comply with doctors’ requests to have their names removed off prescription labels.
Although there were no criminal charges in that case, the attorney general of Texas had previously sued Carpenter on charges of supplying abortion drugs to Texas.
In the patchwork of state-by-state abortion laws since Roe v. Wade was overturned, pills have emerged as the most popular method of abortion in the United States and are at the focus of numerous legal and political disputes.
By Associated Press’s Anthony Izaguirre
Sara Cline, an AP writer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, provided a contribution.
