18th Judicial District Attorney Tony Clayton
A New York doctor is facing criminal charges in Louisiana after prosecutors say he prescribed an abortion drug that terminated a Port Allen teenager’s pregnancy. West Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Tony Clayton says it is illegal to send abortion pills into this state.
“There is a law on the books that any person that dispenses, delivers, or produces any pills that induces and causes an abortion than that person is a principle to breaking the law committing the act of abortion,” Clayton said.
A West Baton Rouge grand jury has indicted Doctor Margaret Carpenter and the 39-year-old mother who allegedly gave the pills to her teenage daughter.
Most abortions have been illegal in Louisiana since the U-S Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade in the summer of 2022. Clayton says that includes abortion medication.
“Abortions are illegal (in Louisiana), and to put a pill in commerce that ultimately enters the mouth and stomach of a child, I believe some folks have to answer to that,” Clayton said.
Clayton says he is not prosecuting the minor who took the drugs. He says last April her mother instructed her daughter to take the pills that were shipped in from the New Paltz clinic in New York. Doctor Carpenter has been practicing family medicine for more than 20 years.
Clayton says it’s the first criminal indictment of its kind in Louisiana.
“The state has voted that abortions are illegal, so you can’t hide behind the voters of New York and ship pills down here to commit abortions down here in Louisiana,” Clayton said.
If Carpenter and the 39-year-old mother are convicted, they face a prison sentence of up to five years.
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