New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday signed a bill to shield the identities of doctors who prescribe abortion medications, days after a physician in the state was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor in Louisiana.
The new law, which took effect immediately, allows doctors to request for their names to be left off abortion pill bottles and instead list the name of their health-care practices on medication labels.
The move came after a grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish, La., indicted New York Dr. Margaret Carpenter and her company on Friday on a charge of criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.
The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Hochul, a Democrat, said last week she would “never, under any circumstances” sign an extradition request to send Carpenter to Louisiana and said authorities in Louisiana discovered the name of the doctor because it was on the medication label.
“After today, that will no longer happen,” the governor said at Monday’s bill signing.
When Louisiana attempted to arrest a New York doctor for doing her job, our laws protected her from prosecution. But they didn’t protect her privacy. <br><br>I’ll keep doing everything in my power to protect reproductive health care – both for those who seek it & those who provide it. <a href=”https://t.co/tmkJdsw6eS”>pic.twitter.com/tmkJdsw6eS</a>
—@GovKathyHochul
Mother of pregnant girl also charged
The girl’s mother, who was also charged, turned herself in to police on Friday. She has not been publicly identified in order to protect the identity of the minor.
Prosecutors in Louisiana said the girl experienced a medical emergency after taking the medication and had to be transported to the hospital. It is not clear how far along she was in her pregnancy.
While responding to the emergency, a police officer learned about the pills and under further investigation found that a doctor in New York state had supplied the drugs and turned their findings over to Clayton’s office.
District attorney Tony Clayton, the prosecutor in the Louisiana case, said the arrest warrant for Carpenter is “nationwide” and that she could face arrest in states with anti-abortion laws.
U.S. Supreme Court justices heard arguments in a case that could limit access to the commonly used abortion drug mifepristone. Since the pandemic, more doctors have dispensed the drug through telemedicine but anti-abortion activists want that stopped.
Louisiana has a near-total abortion ban. Physicians convicted of performing abortions, including ones with pills, face up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 US in fines and the loss of their medical licence.
Hochul said she would push for another piece of legislation this year that will require pharmacists to adhere to doctors’ requests that their name is left off a prescription label.
Carpenter was previously sued by the attorney general of Texas for allegations of sending abortion pills to Texas, though that case did not involve criminal charges.
Pills have become the most common method of abortion in the U.S. and are at the centre of various political and legal battles in the state-by-state patchwork of rules governing abortion since the 2022 decision. Some 63 per cent of all known abortions in the U.S. in 2023 were categorized as medication abortions, according to a report from Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.
The New York law concerns drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol, and it allows prescriptions to be filed under the name of a medical practice, rather than a doctor’s individual name.
In 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a case filed by a Christian anti-abortion group which targeted FDA regulatory actions which allowed for medication abortions to be given at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy instead of seven, as well as enabling mail delivery of the drug without a woman needing to see a clinician in person.
The 9-0 decision did not rule on the merits of the arguments; rather, it concluded the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue.
Reproductive rights groups have criticized the Louisiana indictment.
“We cannot continue to allow forced birth extremists to interfere with our ability to access necessary health care,” the Louisiana Abortion Fund said in a statement. “Extremists hope this case will cause a chilling effect, further tying the hands of doctors who took an oath to care for their patients.”
