Days after Louisiana officials indicted a New York abortionist for illegally mailing abortion pills to a minor in the state, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed a new law that allows abortion pill providers to anonymously prescribe the pills to out-of-state users, by keeping their name off pill bottles.
According to Hochul’s office, the law allows abortion pill prescribers to request that the name of the abortionist’s practice — rather than the prescribing doctor’s name — be printed on the prescription label for the chemical abortion drugs mifepristone, misoprostol, and their generic alternatives. Additionally, “the new measure … requires notice to the patient, and ensures that pharmacies assist with this protective measure.”
The new law strengthens the state’s existing abortionist shield law, which protects abortionists who commit abortion-related crimes in other states. It carries the potential to make it more difficult for officials in those other states to pinpoint the abortionist responsible for breaking the law or injuring a patient by way of the abortion pill.
“Reproductive freedom will always be protected in the State of New York and I’ll never back down from this fight,” Hochul said in a press release. “I’m taking action to strengthen protections for health care professionals and their patients, ensuring New York is a safe haven for anyone providing or receiving reproductive care.”
Flanked by a number of lawmakers at a signing ceremony, Hochul affirmed that the law was signed specifically in response to Louisiana’s indictment of Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who has been charged with a felony crime of criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs for mailing the drugs into a state where induced abortion is illegal.
“If I don’t stand up and protect this doctor, who the hell will?” Hochul said.
Carpenter reportedly mailed the abortion pill drugs to a woman in Louisiana, who then coerced her teenage daughter into taking them against the teen’s will. The teen was injured so badly by the abortion drugs that she had to be transported to the hospital by ambulance, for what prosecutors say was life-saving care. Instead of outrage over her injuries or concern for the obvious flaws in a system that allows such dangerous injuries to occur, New York officials have instead rushed to protect the abortionist responsible.
