Louisiana Indicts California Doctor in Abortion Fight

Louisiana is pursuing a criminal case against another out-of-state doctor accused of mailing abortion pills to a patient in the state, court documents filed this month reveal, per the AP. Louisiana said in a court case filed Sept. 19 that it had issued a warrant for a California-based doctor who it says provided pills to a Louisiana woman in 2023. Both the woman, Rosalie Markezich, and the state attorney's general, are seeking to be part of a lawsuit that seeks to order drug regulators to bar telehealth prescriptions to mifepristone, one of the two drugs usually used in combination for medication abortions.

In court filings, Markezich says her boyfriend at the time used her email address to order drugs from Dr. Remy Coeytaux, a California physician, and sent her $150, which she forwarded to Coeytaux. She said she had no other contact with the doctor. She said she felt forced to take the pills and that "the trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me" and that it would not have happened if telehealth prescriptions to the drug were off limits. The accusation builds on a position taken by anti-abortion groups: That allowing abortion pills to be prescribed by phone or video call and filled by mail opens the door to women being coerced to take them.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill's office did not immediately answer questions about what charges Coeytaux faces, or when the warrant was issued. But under the state's ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy, physicians convicted of providing abortion face up to 15 years in prison and $200,000 in fines. Coeytaux is also the target of a lawsuit filed in July in federal court by a Texas man who says the doctor illegally provided his girlfriend with abortion pills. The Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine said they "fully expect" California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, to uphold his state's shield law in the new case. Murrill told the AP that she will sue governors whose shield laws "purport to protect these individuals from criminal conduct" in Louisiana.