Albany, NY – New York governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill on Monday to protect the identities of doctors who recipe abortions, days after a doctor in the state was accused of sending abortive pills to a minor pregnant in Louisiana .
The new law, which came into effect immediately, allows doctors to request that their names be left of abortive pills bottles and, instead, list the name of their medical care practices in medication labels.
The measure occurred after a large jury in the parish of West Baton Rouge, Louisiana accused Dr. Margaret Carpenter in New York and her company on Friday for prescribing prescribe abortive pills online to a minor pregnant.
The case seems to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortive pills to another state, at least since the United States Supreme Court revoked Roe V. Wade in 2022.
Hochul, a Democrat, said he would not sign an extradition request to send Carpenter to Louisiana and said that the authorities in Louisiana discovered the doctor’s name because he was on the drug label.
“After today, that will no longer happen,” said the governor in the signing of the bill.
Prosecutors in Louisiana said the girl experienced a medical emergency after taking the medication and had to be transported to the hospital. It is not clear how advanced he was in his pregnancy.
Louisiana has an almost total abortion prohibition. Doctors convicted of carrying out abortions, including one with pills, face up to 15 years in prison, $ 200,000 in fines and the loss of their medical license.
Hochul said he would press for another legislation this year that will require pharmacists to adhere to doctors’ requests that his name is left out of a recipe label.
Carpenter was previously sued by Texas Attorney General for accusations of sending abortion pills to Texas, although that case did not involve criminal charges.
The pills have become the most common method of abortion in the US. And are in the center of several political and legal battles in the mosaic of state rules per state that govern abortion from the volume of Roe v. Wade.
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