Reproductive health care providers in New York state who prescribe abortion pills to patients outside the state now have an added layer of protection.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed new legislation effective immediately Monday that says a prescribing doctor can request for their name to be left off of abortion pill bottles, instead only listing the name of their health care practice on medication labels.
The new law is an addition to New York’s existing shield laws that protect prescribers who use telehealth services to provide abortion pills to patients across state lines, even in states where abortion is banned.
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Hochul’s swift action comes just days after a New York doctor, Margaret Carpenter, and her practice were indicted by a grand jury in Louisiana for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill that was taken by a teenager who lives in the state. The minor’s mother was also charged.
The case appears to be the first instance in which a state where abortion is banned has brought criminal charges against a doctor in another state for prescribing abortion medication. Hochul said Monday that authorities in Louisiana discovered Carpenter’s name because it was on the medication label.
Here’s what else you should know:
How do shield laws work?
Shield laws, as they pertain to reproductive care, are state statutes that protect abortion providers, abortion patients and people who help others access abortion in states where it’s banned. Shield laws protect these individuals as long as they are complying under the abortion laws of the state in which they practice and are licensed.
“For instance, a provider who has a license in New York, who is physically present in New York, and combined with New York’s abortion law, New York is not going to facilitate any civil lawsuit or criminal investigation of that provider under the shield law,” Rachel Rebouché, a professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law, told Yahoo News.
“New York, for instance, says no state individual or agency will issue any subpoena or make an arrest or extradite if the person hasn’t been in the other state that’s criminally investigating the provider,” Rebouché explains. “It won’t take disciplinary action in the New York State Board, and it will not increase malpractice insurance.”
Abortion pills are the most common method of ending a pregnancy, accounting for 63% of U.S. abortions in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Despite declines in abortion access in states that have enacted total or near-total bans following the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, monthly abortion rates have increased overall nationwide, according to a report by the Society of Family Planning.
Shield laws, which allow out-of-state doctors to prescribe medication abortions via telehealth, have played a key role in maintaining access to the procedure for patients in states with both total and six-week abortion bans.
There were 9,200 telehealth abortions provided under shield laws from January through March 2024, a 16% increase from October through December 2023, according to the Society of Family Planning report.
Which states have shield laws?
Currently, 18 states have some form of interstate shield laws. Eight of those states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have shield laws that include telehealth provisions, which also protect providers no matter where the patient received care.
In the case of Carpenter, she allegedly prescribed abortion medication through a telehealth visit to a patient in Louisiana, while she was physically present in New York state, which is legal for a provider to do under New York State law. The abortion medication was then delivered through the mail.
Last year, Louisiana passed a law that specifically classifies abortion medications, known as mifepristone and misoprostol, as controlled and dangerous substances under state law.
Mifepristone, which is also used in the treatment of miscarriages, is often paired with a second drug misoprostol and is typically used through 12 weeks of pregnancy. Both were approved by the Food and Drug Administration over 24 years ago.
What’s next for the case against Carpenter?
Louisiana has had a near-total ban on abortion in place since the overturn of Roe, without any exceptions for rape or incest. Under the state’s abortion law, health care providers convicted of performing an illegal abortion, including prescribing abortion medication, face up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines and the loss of their medical license.
Hochul said last week that she will “never under any circumstances turn [Carpenter] over to the state of Louisiana under any extradition request.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who would enforce New York’s shield law, said in a statement that Louisiana’s “cowardly attempt … to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American.”
According to some experts, Carpenter could be at risk of arrest if she travels to Louisiana, or another state without a shield law. “If [Carpenter] goes to Louisiana, she’ll be subject to Louisiana law … and could face arrest,” Rebouché says. “There could be a warrant issued that New York may not honor, but New York shield law says nothing about what other states can do.”