ALBANY, New York — On Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law to protect the identities of doctors who give abortion medications. This came after a doctor in the state faced charges for prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor in Louisiana.
The new rule, which is effective right away, permits doctors to ask for their names to be removed from abortion pill bottles. Instead, the labels can show the name of their medical practices.
A grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, charged Dr. Margaret Carpenter from New York and her company on Friday for reportedly giving abortion pills online to a pregnant teenager.
This seems to be the first time a doctor has faced criminal charges for sending abortion pills to another state since the U.S. Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Hochul, a Democrat, said she wouldn’t approve an extradition request to send Carpenter to Louisiana. She mentioned that Louisiana officials found the doctor’s name on the medicine label.
“The governor said at the bill signing, ‘After today, that will not happen anymore.'”
Prosecutors in Louisiana reported that the girl had a medical emergency after taking the medicine and needed to be taken to the hospital. It’s unclear how many weeks pregnant she was. The girl’s mother, who was also charged, turned herself in to police on Friday.
District Attorney Tony Clayton, the prosecutor in the Louisiana case, said that Carpenter has a national arrest warrant, which means she could be arrested in any state that has anti-abortion laws.
Louisiana has a law that almost completely bans abortion. Doctors found guilty of doing abortions, including those with pills, can get up to 15 years in jail, be fined $200,000, and lose their medical license.
Hochul said she will work on a new law this year that will make pharmacists follow doctors’ requests to leave the doctor’s name off medication labels.
Carpenter was earlier sued by the Texas attorney general for allegedly sending abortion pills to Texas, but there were no criminal charges in that case.
Pills are now the most popular way to have an abortion in the U.S. They are also the focus of many political and legal fights, as different states have different laws about abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
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