Latest news with #NewPaltz-based
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Louisiana DA warns there's trove of evidence against NY doctor who allegedly mailed abortion pills to teen — who was planning gender reveal party: report
Louisiana prosecutors threatened to have enough clear evidence to extradite a New York doctor who allegedly prescribed abortion pills to an out-of-state teenager — as it was revealed the girl was planning a gender reveal party at the time of the so-called crime, according to a report. West Baton Rouge District Attorney Tony Clayton warned that he would eventually catch Dr. Margaret Carpenter despite Gov. Kathy Hochul's staunch defense of the New Paltz-based doctor and refusal to send her to Louisana to face charges. 'There's a warrant for her arrest in all 50 states. The issue is, do you live like an Afghan terrorist? You hide in a cave ducking the authorities?' Clayton told in an interview published Friday. 'She has to go to New Jersey, Philadelphia to visit relatives. If she goes on a cruise, if she does anything' outside of New York, we're going to effectuate the warrant.' Clayton has repeatedly claimed that Carpenter violated Lousiana's anti-abortion laws when she mailed a 'cocktail of pills' to the teen's mother last year, who allegedly pretended they were for herself before she forced them on her 17-year-old daughter. Prosecutors claim the guise would have been avoided if Carpenter had asked the family to present more than a questionnaire. The request was fulfilled without a direct consultation, Clayton alleged. 'She should have Zoomed this young lady. FaceTimed this young lady. Spoken to the mother,' Clayton told the outlet. 'If she had spoken to the mother, she would have seen the mother was not pregnant … For 150 bucks, she put that poison in the mail.' The mother paid by credit card for the shipment of medication, Clayton said, then told the 17-year-old that she had to take the pills 'or else.' The girl, who has not been identified, accepted the ultimatum despite initially pleading to keep the baby. 'She told the mother she wanted to have the baby. She even planned the gender reveal party. She wanted the child. She was 17 at the time,' said Clayton. The teen's mother has been charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony that carries a possible one- to five-year prison sentence. Carpenter and her company, Nightingale Medical, PC, also face the same charge — but have evaded arrest thanks to Hochul's refusal to comply with Lousiana's extradition orders submitted Thursday. 'I want to make sure everyone in the state knows: Keep your hands off this doctor,' Hochul said upon receiving the paperwork. 'I'm respecting the laws of New York. Am I supposed to make those subservient to laws of another state?' New York Attorney General Letitia James also piled on, calling the indictment a 'cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers,' adding that the indictment is 'unjust and un-American.' Clayton, however, remains unwavering and warned that he could rely on a 1987 Supreme Court decision that granted federal authorities the power to enforce extraditions of fugitives, in a case out of Puerto Rico. The ruling came up in 2023 in relation to a pledge by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that he wouldn't assist in President Trump's extradition from Florida to face hush-money charges in New York. Trump went on his own, reported. 'I'm terming it a forced abortion, which makes it even more egregious,' Clayton told the outlet. 'Ignorance of the law is no excuse. If Dr. Carpenter did not know the mother was using this pill to induce abortion involving a child, that's on her. She should not have shipped the pills.'
Washington Post
14-02-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
New York won't comply with extradition of abortion provider, governor says
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 (D) 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.
