Louisiana Mother Pleads Not Guilty to Abortion Charges

3.11.25

Click to skip ahead: Criminalizing Care has updates on the charges against a Louisiana mother arrested for getting her teen abortion pills. Stats & Studies has more research showing that OBGYNs are leaving anti-abortion states. What Conservatives Are Saying looks at ‘abortifacient contraceptives.’ Legislation Watch flags what a fetal remains bill in Nebraska could mean more broadly. In the States, some quick hits. Tracking Abortion Pills reports on a company that will be tracking pills in Louisiana. Anti-Abortion Strategy delves into the bills funneling money to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). Keep An Eye On warns that CPCs might open residential centers for single women and their children. And You Love to See It highlights a terrific anti-CPC campaign in Arkansas.

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Criminalizing Care

The Louisiana mother arrested for giving her teen daughter abortion pills pleaded not guilty today. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison on felony charges.

Louisiana prosecutors have also indicted abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter for mailing the pills—but Carpenter lives in New York, where it’s legal to prescribe and send abortion medication, and where the state’s shield law protects her from prosecution. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has made clear: “There’s no way in hell” she’d extradite Carpenter. The charges mark the first attempt to prosecute a doctor post-Roe.

Louisiana officials—including the prosecutor, governor, and attorney general—all insist this case has “nothing to do with reproductive health care,” but is about ’coercion.’ They claim the mother pressured her teen into ending the pregnancy and that Carpenter enabled it by sending the pills.

But here’s the thing: neither woman is actually facing coercion charges—just criminal abortion charges.

That’s because they know abortion bans are deeply unpopular and that voters don’t want to see mothers and doctors prosecuted for helping teens end their pregnancies. If Republicans can make this very public case about ‘coercion,’ they think they won’t get quite so much backlash.

And as Abortion, Every Day readers know, this is a long-planned strategy: Back in 2023, conservatives identified “coercion” as the GOP’s most effective talking point against abortion rights. Now we’re seeing that strategy play out in real time.

To find out more about the case, read Abortion, Every Day’s past coverage below:

Louisiana Indicts New York Abortion Provider, Arrests Mother

Stats & Studies

In news that will surprise absolutely no one: New research confirms that states with abortion bans are losing OB-GYNs.

Researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University report the 12 most restrictive states saw a more than 4% decline in OBGYNs compared to states where abortion access remained stable. Before Dobbs, the researchers note, OB-GYN supply trends were similar across states—but not anymore.

Over the last three years, this exodus has had major ripple effects: maternity wards shutting down, maternal health deserts expanding, and rising maternal and infant deaths.

One of the study’s authors, Dr. Jane M. Zhu, points out, “Many of the states where reproductive rights are most restricted already experience poorer pregnancy outcomes and disparities in care.” She also notes that while we’ve had “surveys and anecdotal reports” of OBGYNs leaving their states due to abortion bans, this research marks the first empirical evidence of the trend.

And remember: It’s not just that OBGYNs and other reproductive health care providers are fleeing anti-abortion states. These states are having an increasingly difficult time recruiting and replacing those providers. People are understandably not too keen on moving to a place where they could be jailed for doing their jobs. For example, studies have shown a decline in OBGYN residency applications in anti-abortion states.

My hope? That the people who don’t care about women’s rights or basic humanity might at least care about their state losing qualified doctors.

What Conservatives Are Saying

Back in 2023, I flagged a bizarre term that popped up in an Oregon lawsuit: abortifacient ‘contraceptives.’

Oregon Right to Life was trying to gut the state’s Reproductive Health Equity Act, which requires employers to cover abortion and birth control. The law already allowed religious employers to choose plans without abortion coverage, but that wasn’t enough—anti-abortion activists wanted an exemption from covering contraception too. Their argument? That emergency contraception and certain IUDs aren’t birth control at all, but abortifacients. Hence, abortifacient contraceptives. (Yes, they even used scare quotes around contraceptives.)

Thankfully, a federal court shut them down, but the term stuck with me. Fast forward to this month, when a U.S. appeals court rejected a very similar lawsuit challenging a very similar law in Washington. This time, the case was brought by the conservative legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—the group behind the end of Roe and nearly every attack on abortion rights since.

Once again, abortifacient contraceptives made an appearance. Just like in Oregon, ADF specifically name-checked IUDs and emergency contraception. If you’re a longtime reader, you know I’ve been banging this drum for years, warning about how Republicans are trying to redefine certain kinds of contraception as ‘abortifacients.’ The fact that we’ve seen several of these suits is just more evidence of that tactic:

The GOP’s Plan to Ban Birth Control (Part I)

Here’s what else is telling: When ADF talks about this case publicly, they barely mention contraception at all. Every conservative headline and press release screams about churches being “forced to cover abortion”—but contraception? Not a word. Because they know exactly how unpopular this fight is.

Legislation Watch

Anti-abortion lawmakers in Nebraska are pushing a bill that would require abortion clinics to dispose of fetal remains by “cremation or interment by burial.” We’ve seen legislation like this before—in fact, a law in Ohio mandating the same was just repealed last month. But there are a few things about Nebraska’s LB632 that warrant special attention.

First, conservatives are telling on themselves with the legislative language: The bill only requires fetal remains to be buried or cremated if they’re from an “elective abortion.” If this legislation were really about ‘dignity’ for the fetus, as Republicans claim, why wouldn’t it apply to all pregnancy losses? Could they be any clearer that this is about punishing ‘bad’ women who seek out abortions?

This language also points to a broader Republican strategy that we’ve talked about before: divorcing abortion from healthcare. Just last week, I told you about a South Carolina bill that would prevent doctors from calling miscarriage treatment ‘abortion’—even when it is. This bill is just another attempt to reinforce that lie.

But there’s another anti-abortion tactic embedded in Nebraska’s bill: the false claim that fetal remains harm the environment. LB632 states that burial or cremation is necessary to “protect public health,” while bill sponsor, Sen. Ben Hansen, warns that “improper disposal” of fetal remains could put “toxic pollutants” in the groundwater.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because anti-abortion groups like Students for Life have been pushing this bananas myth for years. Their usual target is abortion medication: They’ve argued in suits and complaints against the FDA that allowing women to flush embryonic or fetal tissue contaminates the groundwater with ‘dangerous’ abortion medication.

The truth? They know abortion bans are unpopular—especially with young people—but environmental protections are popular. So they’re trying to reframe abortion as an environmental hazard.

Just like burial and cremation mandates for procedural abortions, this isn’t about science or safety—but shaming and punishing women. Students for Life is even pushing for doctors to force patients to bag up their blood and bring it in to dispose as medical waste.

Bottom line: Watch for these two tactics—groundwater “contamination” myths and abortion laws that try to divorce abortion from healthcare by singling out ‘elective’ procedures.

In the States

• Legislation to create a grant fund for under and uninsured abortion patients in Maryland is advancing;

• Legislation in Utah would ban any group that provides abortions from offering health education in public schools;

• The Guardian on the fate of Wyoming’s last abortion clinics as Republicans continue their attacks;

• More on Kansas Republicans’ plan to ban abortion by changing the rules on state Supreme Court elections;

• And a short public radio segment on the abortion funding crisis across the Midwest.

Tracking Abortion Pills

If you missed this Business Insider article about the company tracking abortion pill prescriptions, fix that immediately. This is exactly the kind of reporting we need right now.

You probably remember that Louisiana passed a law last year classifying abortion pills as a ‘controlled substance.’ That didn’t just increase penalties—it also meant that prescriptions, along with the patients and providers, are now tracked in a state database.

Starting this month, a company called Bamboo Health will be running that tracking system in Louisiana. BI also reports that Bamboo works with Texas, Indiana, and Idaho—three states considering similar bills to make the pills ‘controlled substances.’

Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, says doctors are (rightly) alarmed that digital tracking by this $100 million company could make it even easier for law enforcement to target providers. And they have reason to worry: BI reporters point out that prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) have already made doctors hesitant to prescribe narcotics—advocates fear the same chilling effect will hit reproductive health care.

Health care lawyer Randi Seigel put it bluntly:

“One could imagine somebody coming in who's having a miscarriage—and this is appropriate for miscarriage management—and somebody saying, 'Well, wait, we have to wait a little longer to make sure you are really having a miscarriage.'“

This is about more than just abortion pills—it’s about creating a surveillance state for reproductive health care. Please, go read the full piece. It’s an important one.

Anti-Abortion Strategy

Let’s talk about a growing Republican trend: Bills to let people donate to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) instead of paying their taxes. Seriously.

Last week, ProPublica uncovered a Missouri bill that would give donors a 100% tax credit for donations to CPCs, capped at $50,000:

“The result: Nearly all Missouri households—except those with the highest incomes—could fully satisfy their state tax bill by redirecting their payment from the state to pregnancy centers.”

And Missouri isn’t alone. I’ve since learned about a similar bill in South Carolina that would offer a 50% tax credit for CPC donations, and Oklahoma legislation with a 70% tax credit—also capped at $50,000 per taxpayer. (Which makes me think this legislation is coming from a national group.)

As you know, CPCs are at the heart of Republicans’ post-Roe strategy: Conservatives fund these fake clinics to pretend they care about women and children—even as they run real reproductive health care providers out of town.

But this isn’t just PR. CPCs are the enforcement arm of the anti-abortion movement. Too many people think they’re just local zealots trying to talk women out of abortion. In reality, they’re playing a much bigger role:

• CPCs are part of Republicans’ plan to ban contraception. Lawmakers are stripping states of real clinics and replacing them with CPCs—groups that don’t prescribe birth control and actively spread misinformation about it. (They don’t need to outlaw contraception if they just make it impossible to get.)

• CPCs are fueling the rise of ‘maternity homes.’ These are basically residential CPCs that prey on vulnerable women with nowhere else to turn. Run by the same national networks, they control women’s movements, restrict their phone access, and force them to “earn” necessities like diapers by attending Bible classes. They also have ties to private Christian adoption agencies. (The New York Times published a chilling piece on the groups that’s worth reading.)

• CPCs pressure women to carry doomed pregnancies to term. Some states force women with fatal fetal abnormalities to get “prenatal counseling” before having an abortion—but they’re sent to CPCs instead of real medical professionals. There, they’re told their test results could be wrong, and that having an abortion could kill them.

• CPCs collect and share women’s private data. Abortion, Every Day even uncovered a data breach at Heartbeat International, the country’s largest CPC network. These groups lie about being bound by HIPAA—they’re not—meaning they can share patient info with law enforcement or anyone else.

And the worst part? These groups rake in over 1 billion a year, but almost none of it goes toward helping women. Investigations show that CPCs spend most of their funds on marketing, staff travel, and even exercise equipment. In fact, a report from Equity Forward found that Heartbeat International provided just one stroller for 1% of clients, one car seat for 1.6%, and fewer than one pack of diapers per person.

Republicans aren’t just funneling taxpayer money into anti-abortion propaganda—they’re making sure women get nothing in return.

Keep An Eye On

While we’re talking about CPCs, I had to flag something that sent a chill down my spine. Staff and volunteers from multiple anti-abortion groups submitted written testimony in support of Missouri’s tax credit bill—with many explaining how much the state’s existing law allowing donations helps to expand their work. Check out what one board member of the Oasis Resource Center wrote:

“We just completed a debt-free 5000 square foot center due in large part to the Missouri tax credit. Our next phase is housing for these women, many of whom are unable to afford, let alone find a place for themselves and their baby. This would be revolutionary in helping guide these women to become productive citizens who can then become role models for their children.”

We already know how bad ‘maternity homes’ for pregnant women are—they take women’s phones, enforce curfews, install tracking apps, and even ban dating. Imagine what that would look like for women and their children. That line about guiding women to be “productive citizens” says it all.

You Love to See It

If you’re looking for a good way to fight back against CPCs, I love what Mayday Health did in Arkansas. They drove a mobile billboard around, parking it in front of the fake clinics to make sure people knew they wouldn’t be able to get an abortion there. Just as important: The billboard alerted folks that their health data wouldn’t be protected by HIPAA. (Remember, these groups lie about being beholden to federal privacy laws.)

“I am finding hope in the community, within the communities who are constantly fighting everything that they throw at us. We believe that hope is an action, and we're not going to stop.” - Brittaney Stockton, Arkansas Abortion Support Network