A Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York doctor for providing abortion pills to a Louisiana resident. It may be the first time criminal charges have been filed against an abortion provider for sending pills into a state with an abortion ban. The New York Times called it a new chapter in a showdown between states that ban abortion and those that want to expand access to it. It is challenging one of the strategies used by states that support abortion rights: shield laws intended to provide legal protection to doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills to states with bans. The charges were filed against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who was operating under New York’s telemedicine abortion shield law, which says New York authorities will not cooperate with prosecutions or other legal actions filed against New York abortion providers by other states.
Telemedicine abortion shield laws, which have been adopted by eight states, have become a significant avenue for providing access to abortion for women in states with bans without requiring them to leave their state. Doctors, nurse practitioners and other health care providers in states with shield laws have been sending more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to states with abortion bans or restrictions. The case probably will end up in federal court and possibly the Supreme Court. It is expected to become a major test of whether states can apply criminal laws to people outside their borders. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the national right to abortion, the U.S. has been divided between states that restrict abortion and states that protect it. “There’s just been a sense that if you were in a blue state, you’re shielded from the consequences of Dobbs,” said law Prof. Mary Ziegler of the University of California, Davis. “Prosecutions like this undermine that assumption, and we don’t know exactly how, or how much, but you can’t take that for granted.” Tony Clayton, district attorney in West Baton Rouge, La., said, “I just don’t know under what theory could a doctor be thinking that you should ship your pills to Louisiana to abort our citizens’ babies The pill may be legal in New York. It’s not legal in Louisiana.”
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