New York won't comply with extradition of abortion provider, governor says
Governor Kathy Hochul makes a reproductive freedom announcement on Feb. 13 in New York City. (Photo by NDZ/STAR MAX/IPx via AP)
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she will not comply with a request to extradite to Louisiana a New York doctor who faces a criminal charge there for allegedly prescribing abortion-inducing drugs despite a near-total abortion ban.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) on Tuesday signed an extradition warrant for the New York doctor, Margaret Daley Carpenter, after a Louisiana patient was allegedly found to have taken abortion medication. In a Thursday video statement, Landry alleged that the patient, a minor, wanted to keep the baby but was forced to take the medication by her mother and was hospitalized. “There is only one right answer in this situation,” he said, calling for Carpenter to stand trial in Louisiana.
Hochul, a Democrat, told reporters she had received the extradition order on Thursday and would not sign it. “Doctors take an oath to protect their patients,” she said on social media. “I took an oath to protect all New Yorkers.”
New York is among the Democratic-led states that have enacted “shield laws” to protect doctors who prescribe abortion medication to patients who live in states where abortion is restricted. New York law prohibits any state or local government worker from cooperating with out-of-state authorities regarding any health-care practice that is legal in New York.
But the legality of shield laws is yet to be tested in the Supreme Court, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022. Carpenter, whose New Paltz-based company Nightingale Medical was also indicted, is believed to be the first doctor criminally charged in the United States over allegedly providing an abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
She is also a co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which said in a statement that the extradition order is “the latest escalation in Louisiana’s ongoing state-sponsored effort to prosecute safe and effective healthcare.”
In a separate case Thursday, the same doctor was fined $100,000 in Texas and ordered to stop providing abortion medication there, the Associated Press reported, in another test of shield laws that could come before a higher court. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in December sued Carpenter for allegedly prescribing abortion pills via telehealth to a 20-year-old woman in Collin County, northeast of Dallas, last year.
The woman had to seek hospital care after taking the abortion medication, the complaint alleges. Hospital staff then alerted the man who had impregnated the woman to her condition, and the man subsequently found the pills in her home, it claims.
“Carpenter is not a licensed Texas physician, nor is she authorized to practice telemedicine in the State of Texas,” the complaint said, asking for an injunction against her and civil penalties up to $250,000.
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