Louisiana is trying to extradite a New York doctor for allegedly sending abortion medication into the state.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill signed an extradition form Wednesday for Dr. Margaret Carpenter, less than two weeks after a grand jury indicted the physician for prescribing and sending abortion pills to a woman in the state, Murrill announced in a post on social platform X.
In the post, Murrill states the form has been transferred to Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s office. “We will take any and all legal actions to enforce the criminal laws of this State!” she wrote.
A grand jury in the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge indicted Carpenter, her company Nightingale Medical PC, and another woman who gave the medication to her teenage daughter.
The case is thought to be the first time criminal charges have been issued against a doctor for allegedly prescribing and sending abortion medication across state lines, after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision ended the constitutional right to abortion.
The Louisiana lawsuit is also a test of New York state’s shield law, which protects health care providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions for prescribing and delivering abortion medication to patients in states with strict abortion laws.
Carpenter, her company and the mother were all charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drug, which is considered a felony in Louisiana, according to The Associated Press.
Abortion is banned in Louisiana with exceptions for rape and incest. The state also reclassified the two drugs needed for medication abortions — mifepristone and misoprostol — as Schedule IV controlled substances.
When asked how Louisiana plans to extradite Carpenter, a spokesperson for Murrill referred The Hill to a post on X in which the attorney general warns the doctor to “be careful with her travel plans.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has repeatedly pledged to protect Carpenter from extradition, stating in a video message last month that she would “never, under any circumstances” turn the doctor over to Louisiana.
The Hill reached out to Hochul’s office for comment on the extradition request.
Landry said in his own video message Thursday that the only “right answer” to Carpenter’s case is for her to be handed over to officials in Louisiana “where justice will be served.”
“Let me be clear on what this case is about. This is about a case in which a minor in Louisiana got pregnant. This minor was excited to have a baby, and she was actually planning a gender reveal party,” Landry says in the video.
“Her mom conspired with a New York doctor to get a chemical abortion pill in the mail and then forced that minor to take it … This pill ended up ending her pregnancy and that baby’s life.”
