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Louisiana charges NY doctor and local mother with felonies over abortion pills shipped to the state [1]
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Date: 2025-02-01
On Friday, a Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, and a Louisiana mother, whose name was not released, on felony charges of causing a criminal abortion.
The charges were brought by Louisiana’s 18th Judicial District Attorney Tony Clayton. Note: Clayton claims he is a Democrat. But that appears to be a title of convenience as he is enthusiastically acting like a Republican. He is prosecuting the case alongside GOP state Attorney General Liz Murrill.
According to the prosecution — meaning the facts are alleged but not proven — the mother had filled out an online questionnaire to order abortion pills from Dr. Carpenter’s company, Nightingale Medical, in NY. The mother used her credit card to pay $150 for the medication and received it in the mail. She had then given her pregnant 17-year-old daughter the pills with the ultimatum to take them or leave home. The teen took the pills.
The Louisiana Illuminator reported what the prosecutor claimed happened next.
“The child took the pill and was home by herself,” Clayton said, adding that she later started bleeding, called 911 and was taken to a hospital in an ambulance. A police officer who responded to the call initially thought the teen was experiencing a miscarriage but “found out” she had taken abortion pills provided from an out-of-state clinic, the district attorney said. Police ultimately brought the case to his office, according to Clayton. “The mother’s the one who paid for it with a credit card and put the whole deal in action,” he said. “The doctor is being charged because [she] mailed the pill here.” Louisiana law does not allow a pregnant person to be charged with criminal abortion, and Clayton said he “absolutely” would not charge the minor involved.
This case will end up in the US Supreme Court as it involves a dispute between states. It will determine the full extent of the Court’s ruling in Dobbs that American women’s reproductive choices are not theirs to make. Because the first case addressing interstate traffic in abortion medication will be a precedent for future laws, the Louisiana authorities wanted to find one as emotionally favorable to the prosecution as possible. They seem to have succeeded.
The Illuminator further reports:
When asked if he thought a child under the age of 18 could consent to an abortion, Clayton answered the question by tailoring it to this specific case. “The evidence will show in this case that the child had planned a gender reveal, and the child wanted to keep her baby,” he said. “This is not a question of her wanting to have the abortion.” “I’m charging the mother because she ordered the pill, and she paid for the pill with her credit card and she gave the pill to a minor. That’s illegal in the state of Louisiana.” Clayton said.
A minor forced to have an abortion? That looks like a winner to the big government misogynists. AG Murrill certainly thought so. In a written statement Friday, she agreed the teen’s mother had compelled her daughter to take the abortion pills. Murrill wrote:
“The allegations in this case have nothing to do with reproductive health care, this is about coercion. This is about forcing somebody to have an abortion who didn’t want one.” “We investigated this case. District Attorney Tony Clayton brought it to a grand jury. The grand jury unanimously and quickly indicted.”
It’s disingenuous for Murrill to say this has “nothing to do with reproductive healthcare”. On the contrary, the case has everything to do with women’s health. Regardless of the circumstances of this case, what will be decided is whether a state has the right to sue doctors who live in different states for the remote prescription and supply of drugs.
I do not know how many ‘forced abortions’ there are. But I guarantee that there are far fewer than conservatives claim. And that they represent a minuscule percentage of total abortions. I also have no issue with laws criminalizing people who force women to have abortions. Those felons are no better than the politicians who force women to have children. However, Merrill, Clayton, and the other officious tyrants will not limit themselves to this narrow subset of all abortions.
Unsurprisingly, Democratic NY Gov. Kathy Hochul quickly sided with Dr. Carpenter. She released a video calling the charges “outrageous,” saying it is why she signed “very tough” shield laws into place protecting telehealth providers.
“I will never, under any circumstances, turn this doctor over to the state of Louisiana under any extradition request. Republicans are fighting to have a national abortion ban that will deny reproductive freedom to women, not just in our state, but all across America. We must stand firm and fight this.”
Louisiana Governor, Jeff Landry, supported his prosecutors’ misleading take on the affair. In a snide take on a Hochul tweet, he lied while accusing his antagonist of lying. (I suspect an unsent draft of the tweet contained language about ‘rubber’ and ‘glue’). Landry also adopted the conservative conceit of presuming to speak for “the American people” — ignoring that a majority of Americans do not support his position on abortion, or anything else for that matter.
The prosecutor Clayton was equally off-base. He told Dr. Carpenter to pack her bags and journey to his state simply because he thought she should. He told the media — because that’s where conservatives put people on trial:
“You broke the law in the state of Louisiana and you ought to come down here and answer the charges.”
The whole affair is reminiscent of the Dred Scott decision — in which the 1857 Supreme Court declared that slaves were still the property of their owners even if they lived in a free state. I will bet there is a powerful desire among the conservative Justices of the 2025 Court to federalize an atrocity because a conservative state wants its law to have national reach.
No doubt Louisiana’s good old boys and girls are ecstatic at sticking it to big bad liberal New York. However, if they actually gave a shit about the state’s residents — including potential mothers — they would address the medical issues in their home state. LA’s maternal mortality rate is 67% higher than NY’s.
In addition, while the Bible Belt promotes heterosexual marriage as the ideal circumstance for raising children, Louisiana has the second highest rate of single-parent households in the US. It is indisputable that abstinence-only sex ed plays a role in that — and in putting poor women and girls in a place where economics impels them to seek abortions.
I have been to Louisiana — New Orleans, of course, but also Shreveport and Baton Rouge. I have always had a good time. The food was good. The people were friendly — even to a New Yorker. However, their need for others to live according to their philosophy seems un-American. Perhaps that's the real reason they want to secede.
I also lived in Dallas. That was more of the same — except the citizens’ homes and inferiority complexes were bigger. Although in Dallas, Austin, and Houston, there were vibrant liberal and artistic communities.
It’s a paradox that big government liberals support a light government hand on individual rights — while small government conservatives are big fans of social tyranny by the authorities.
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