PORT ALLEN — A New York doctor and a local mother have been indicted by a West Baton Rouge Parish grand jury for allegedly taking part in a mail-order abortion. Now, Governor Jeff Landry has signed an extradition warrant for the doctor at the request of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and District Attorney Tony Clayton.
That means she can now be transported back to Louisiana to begin facing charges locally.
Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her company Nightingale Medical, and the mother were all charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs—a felony under Louisiana law. This appears to be the first time a doctor has faced criminal charges for sending abortion pills across state lines since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Prosecutors claim the mother ordered abortion medication from Carpenter, who sent it to her in the mail, and the mother reportedly gave it to her pregnant child. UWK is not naming the mother in order to protect the minor’s identity.
“This pill ended up ending her pregnancy and that baby’s life,” Landry said in a video that accompanied the extradition warrant. “There’s only one right answer in this situation and it’s that the doctor must face extradition to Louisiana where she can stand trial and justice will be served. We owe that to the minor and to the innocent loss of life and to the people of this state who stand by life overwhelmingly.
Clayton agreed with the governor’s assessment.
“She put into commerce a cocktail of pills that caused a minor to reluctantly abort her child. As a result of her putting her profit over the safety and laws of Louisiana, this Grand Jury has indicted her, and it’s this prosecutor’s position that she has a date with Louisiana justice that she needs to fulfill,” said Clayton, noting he is not planning on prosecuting the minor.
Murrill says her office is assisting with the prosecution.
“The allegations in this case have nothing to do with reproductive health care, this is about coercion,” Murrill said. “This is about forcing somebody to have an abortion who didn’t want one”
The indictment comes just months after Louisiana became the first state to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances.” While the drugs are still legal in certain cases, medical personnel now face additional hurdles to access them.
Under the law, anyone who knowingly possesses mifepristone or misoprostol without a valid prescription—regardless of the intended use—could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. However, the law does make an exception for pregnant women who obtain the drugs without a prescription to use on their own.
“It is illegal to send abortion pills into this State and it’s illegal to coerce another into having an abortion,” Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill said on social media Friday. “I have said it before and I will say it again: We will hold individuals accountable for breaking the law.”
Since Roe was overturned, Louisiana has enforced a near-total abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors convicted of performing an illegal abortion—including one involving medication—face up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines, and the loss of their medical license.
The indictment will be one of the first cases to test New York’s shield laws, which are intended to protect doctors who use telehealth to provide abortion pills to patients in states where abortions are banned.
Carpenter was sued in December by Texas’ attorney general over similar allegations of mailing abortion pills to that state, though that case was a civil lawsuit, not a criminal prosecution.
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