When the news broke on Jan. 31 that a New York physician had been indicted for shipping abortion medications to a woman in Louisiana, it stoked fear across the network of doctors and medical clinics who engage in similar work.
“It’s scary. It’s frustrating,” said Angel Foster, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, a clinic near Boston that mails mifepristone and misoprostol pills to patients in states with abortion bans. But, Foster added, “it’s not entirely surprising.”
Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion providers like her had been expecting prosecution or another kind of legal challenge from states with abortion bans, she said.
“It was unclear when those tests would come, and would it be against an individual provider or a practice or organization?” she said. “Would it be a criminal indictment, or would it be a civil lawsuit,” or even an attack on licensure? she wondered. “All of that was kind of unknown, and we’re starting to see some of this play out.”
The indictment also sparked worry among abortion providers like Kohar Der Simonian, medical director for Maine Family Planning. The clinic doesn’t mail pills into states with bans, but it does treat patients who travel from those states to Maine for abortion care.
“It just hit home that this is real, like this could happen to anybody, at any time now, which is scary,” Der Simonian said.
Der Simonian and Foster both know the indicted doctor, Margaret Carpenter.
“I feel for her. I very much support her,” Foster said. “I feel very sad for her that she has to go through all of this.”
On Jan. 31, Carpenter became the first U.S. doctor criminally charged for providing abortion pills across state lines — …