The doctor indicted by Louisiana for prescribing abortion pills saved my life

Margaret Carpenter’s devotion to her patients should be celebrated, not criminalized

By Maya Gottfried
Feb. 14, 2025

Margaret Carpenter, based in New Paltz, New York, has been indicted for prescribing abortion pills to a person in Louisiana — where nearly all abortions are illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. It isn’t the only legal threat she faces: In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Carpenter for sending abortion pills to someone in the state. On Thursday, a judge fined her more than $100,000 and ordered her to stop prescribing and mailing abortion drugs to Texas patients.

I know Carpenter as “Dr. Maggie.” She has been a hero of mine for a long time, but not just for standing up for people’s rights to reproductive health. When I was 35, she helped save my life.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/margaret-carpenter-abortion-pills-louisiana-new-york-shield-law/


Arrest warrant issued for New York doctor indicted in Louisiana for prescribing abortion pill

By  SARA CLINE and GEOFF MULVIHILL
January 31, 2025

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An arrest warrant has been issued for a New York doctor indicted on Friday by a Louisiana grand jury for allegedly prescribing abortion pills online to a pregnant minor in the Deep South state, which has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country.

Grand jurors at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge unanimously issued an indictment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter; her company, Nightingale Medical, PC; and the minor’s mother. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-indictment-lousiana-new-york-doctor-63ff4d9da8a9b592a7ca4ec7ba538cd3


Abortion rights ballot measures pass in 7 states, fail in 3 others

Defeats in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota ended an unbroken post-Roe ballot measure winning streak for reproductive rights advocates.

Nov. 6, 2024
By Adam Edelman

Constitutional amendments to protect or expand abortion rights passed in seven of the 10 states where they appeared on the ballot Tuesday, NBC News projects.

Voters in Arizona and Missouri approved ballot initiatives that will effectively protect abortion rights until fetal viability and undo existing abortion laws on the books. But voters in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota rejected proposed amendments that would have done the same — becoming the first pro-abortion-rights ballot measures to fail since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/abortion-rights-ballot-measures-pass-7-states-fail-3-others-rcna178718


Revisiting New York’s Historic Abortion Law in “Deciding Vote”

Jeremy Workman and Robert Lyons’s film reconstructs the passage of a 1970 law that made the state a sanctuary for people seeking abortions, and cost a lawmaker his career.

by Linnea Feldman Emison
November 29, 2023

In April, 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade made it legal nationwide, New York passed the most expansive abortion law in the U.S. Three other states passed similar bills in the same year, but New York’s was of particular national significance because it allowed patients to get an abortion even if they weren’t residents. This made the state a hub for people from other parts of the country seeking to safely end their pregnancies. That role has become a lasting element of New York’s political identity—in anticipation of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, in 2022, it passed a suite of laws to again become a sanctuary state for those seeking abortions—but that 1970 law almost fizzled out in the state legislature.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/revisiting-new-yorks-historic-abortion-law-in-deciding-vote


USA – Why an independent abortion clinic is suing Planned Parenthood

Melissa Jeltsen with photographs by Thalía Juárez
Tue 6 Jun 2023

In a sign of tensions within the abortion rights community, a Manhattan clinic alleges the reproductive health behemoth poached one of its doctors, bringing it to the ‘point of implosion’

Parkmed NYC, an independent abortion clinic on the east side of Manhattan, is located in a nondescript office building that also houses the Ecuadorian consulate. Five days a week, the clinic is flooded with patients, many of whom have traveled long distances by bus, train or plane to evade abortion bans in their home states.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/abortion-clinic-suing-planned-parenthood


USA – This ‘full spectrum’ doula helps with birth, miscarriage and abortion

April 27, 2023
Terry Gross

Since 2010, Vicki Bloom has worked with the Doula Project, a New York City-based collective that partners with clinics to support pregnant people — whether the result is childbirth or termination.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Vicki Bloom, is a doula. Typically, doulas provide support for women during pregnancy and childbirth. But Bloom describes herself as a full-spectrum doula, working with people no matter how the pregnancy proceeds, whether it results in birth, miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion. Since 2010, she's worked with The Doula Project, a New York City-based collective that partners with clinics to support pregnant people, whether the result is childbirth or termination. The doulas are volunteers, which enables The Doula Project to fulfill its goal of providing free emotional, physical and informational support to low-income women and to marginalized communities.

Continued:  https://www.npr.org/2023/04/27/1172200783/this-full-spectrum-doula-helps-with-birth-miscarriage-and-abortion


No Matter Where You Live, New Yorkers Can Help You Get an Abortion (And We’ll Pay for It, Too.)

By Claire Lampen, a staff writer for the Cut.
Dec 5, 2022

Nancy Davis found herself living what she called “a mother’s worst nightmare.” Around ten weeks into her pregnancy, an ultrasound detected that the fetus had acrania, meaning it was developing without a skull. Davis lives in Louisiana, and acrania doesn’t appear on the list of “medically futile” conditions that allow for an exception to the near-total abortion ban the state implemented after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Louisiana doctors, they were scared of prosecution; they were scared of being fined,” Davis says. “So I went somewhere the laws were clear and they were confident they could give me the care that I needed.”

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2022/12/new-yorkers-can-help-you-get-an-abortion.html


250 Ads for Self-Managed Abortion Pill Info Launch in NYC Subway System

4/15/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

Reproductive health, rights and justice advocates have teamed up to plaster New York City subways with information about how to find abortion pills and access free legal advice about using them. From Queens to the Bronx, in Brooklyn and Manhattan—including Times Square—over 250 posters are now sharing abortion pill information in English and Spanish with the millions of people passing through subway stations and riding the trains each day.

“As politicians and courts continue their assault on abortion access, we are spreading the word that these medically safe and effective pills are available by mail in all 50 states,” said Elisa Wells, co-founder and co-director Plan C, which organized the ad campaign. “Everyone deserves access to this modern medical technology, and we provide the information that people need to take back control of their reproductive autonomy.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/15/self-managed-abortion-pill-ads-nyc-subway-plan-c-medication-abortion/


Sonic Youth Fight Texas Abortion Ban With Vintage Concerts

Band opens its vaults to raise money for grassroots abortion funds, releasing concerts from 1995 and 2006 and new T-shirts

By SIMON VOZICK-LEVINSON
November 5, 2021

It’s been a decade since Sonic Youth played their final show, but they’re not letting a little thing like that stop them from standing up for abortion rights in Texas. The influential New York band announced today that they are releasing two vintage concerts via Bandcamp to raise funds for grassroots groups fighting back against Texas’ draconian abortion ban, S.B. 8.

“In times like these it feels good to be able to take some action instead of being totally frustrated by the system,” Kim Gordon says in an exclusive statement to RS. “This Texas law is pure old-west-style vigilante, cowboy DIY mentality that goes against the constitution. We will only overcome this if we’re an engine coming out against this regressive and inhumane law, by coming together. I hope this brings awareness and encourages other people to join the fight by donating.”

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sonic-youth-texas-abortion-ban-1251212/


USA – Clinics Close, but Abortion Continues

Even as abortion is restricted, telemedicine allows some women to end unwanted pregnancies using legal medications.

By Jane E. Brody
May 31, 2021

Abortion is once again a prominent source of controversy, restrictive legislation and, for many, great distress. A little background may help put this in perspective.

Fifty years ago last fall, after New York State adopted the most lenient abortion law in the country, many out-of-state women with unwanted pregnancies sought help from New York doctors.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/well/live/abortion-legal-medication.html