America’s Cross-Border Abortion War

The United States has been deeply divided on abortion for decades, but since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, those divides have deepened as differing legal regimes emerge across the nation. In some states, such as California and New York, destroying an unborn person in the womb is a fiercely defended “human right.” In others, such as Alabama and Mississippi, abortion is illegal with limited exceptions on the explicit grounds of unborn human rights. Not since chattel slavery have Americans been so at odds on an issue of fundamental personhood.

In response to this patchwork legal regime, abortion activists have created a vast underground network to ship abortifacient drugs into states with pro-life laws, a perverse mirror and moral opposite of the life-giving Underground Railroad. Activists refer to areas with pro-life laws, without irony, as “abortion deserts,” and ignore the widely documented risks of the abortion pill. Indeed, in a spectacular act of gaslighting, abortion activists even insist that women who died from complications of the abortion pill—such as Amber Thurman in Georgia—were killed by a lack of access to abortion. Clashes between these legal regimes are inevitable.

A grotesque example of this is currently playing out between New York and Louisiana, where abortion has been illegal with exceptions since Dobbs. A West Baton Rouge grand jury indicted Dr. Margaret Carpenter of New York and an unnamed thirty-nine-year-old Louisiana mother on charges of criminal abortion by means of abortifacient drugs. The mother ordered the abortion pills from Carpenter and allegedly coerced her daughter—who had a wanted pregnancy—to take them. According to District Attorney Tony Clayton, the unnamed girl even “had a reveal party planned.” The charges carry a potential prison term of between one and five years and may be the first of its kind in the nation.

Dr. Margaret Carpenter, a family practitioner, owns a medical clinic in New Paltz in upstate New York and is also the CEO of Possible Health Medical. In April 2024, the Louisiana mother ordered mifepristone from Carpenter online after filling out a questionnaire. Carpenter did not interview the intended (and unaware) recipient of the abortion pills, which were mailed to the post office in Port Allen, Louisiana. “[The mother] got the box of pills, gave it to her daughter, and told her to take them,” Clayton stated. “The child took the pills alone.” The girl experienced a “medical emergency” and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, where thankfully she was “treated and stabilized.”

Despite the fact that a teenage girl was coerced into an abortion, New York Governor Kathy Hochul immediately framed the indictment as an attack on “reproductive rights,” although she did not mention that in this case, it was the victim’s “reproductive rights” that were clearly violated. “Louisiana is attempting to prosecute a New York doctor for providing reproductive health care,” she posted on X. “After Roe was overturned, I signed laws to protect patients & doctors from exactly this type of action. We will not comply with an extradition request. We will remain a safe harbor.” 

In an accompanying video, Hochul claimed that Carpenter had been indicted 

for simply providing a lifesaving medication to induce an abortion, mifepristone via telehealth in the state of Louisiana. This is exactly the scenario we envisioned could happen and why I signed into law very tough shield laws, where I am proud to say I will never, under any circumstances, turn this doctor over to the state of Louisiana. . . . And I want to also say this: This is exactly what we feared. Republicans are fighting to have a national abortion ban that will deny reproductive freedom not just in our state, but all across America. We must stand firm and fight this.

As in so many national abortion stories of late, the details of the case were entirely rewritten and the truth deliberately ignored. Chasity Wilson, the executive director of Louisiana Abortion Fund, was similarly deceitful. “We cannot continue to allow forced birth extremists to interfere with our ability to access necessary healthcare,” she said. “Extremists hope this case will cause a chilling effect, further tying the hands of doctors who took an oath to care for their patients.” She said nothing about the patient in question, or the wanted baby who died as a result of “lifesaving medication.” Like Hochul, Wilson is an extremist who doesn’t particularly care.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill responded to set the record straight: “It is illegal to send abortion pills into this state and it’s illegal to coerce another into having an abortion. The allegations in this case have nothing to do with reproductive health care, this is about coercion. This is about forcing somebody to have an abortion who didn’t want one.” Eighteenth Judicial District Judge Alvin Batiste has issued warrants for the arrest of both the mother and Carpenter, but New York’s shield law, signed by Hochul in 2023, prevents New York from cooperating with other states in the prosecution of New York doctors in the provision of abortion.

This is not the first time Carpenter has run afoul of pro-life laws in other states. In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a civil lawsuit against her for allegedly sending abortion pills to a twenty-year-old in Texas and requested a temporary injunction to prevent Carpenter from sending abortion pills to Texas. 

In Louisiana and Texas, pro-life legislators are determined to create a safe harbor for unborn children and their mothers. In New York and likeminded states, pro-abortion legislators are determined to create a safe harbor for abortionists and black-market dealers in illegal abortion pills. No collateral damage—not even a teenage girl mourning her dead child, aborted against her will—is too great a price to pay for these extremists. Dobbs has exposed divides that are telling us much about America, and the cross-border abortion wars bring to mind Lincoln’s great 1858 speech: “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”