Louisiana Wants to Prosecute Another Doctor for Allegedly Mailing Abortion Pills

The state’s AG is ”using these allegations to challenge shield laws,” Lift Louisiana’s Michelle Erenberg told Jezebel.

By Danielle Han | September 30, 2025 | 5:18pm

Photo: Getty Images

Louisiana Wants to Prosecute Another Doctor for Allegedly Mailing Abortion Pills

A state with one of the strictest abortion bans in the country has launched a criminal case against an out-of-state doctor for sending mifepristone to one of its residents. Again.

Earlier this month, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill sent a 50-page warrant to Dr. Remy Coeytaux in California, declaring “extra-territorial mailing of abortion drugs is illegal under state law.” Last year, the state shoehorned itself into a similar lawsuit, in which Texas’s supervillain Attorney General Ken Paxton sued New York-based Dr. Margaret Carpenter for allegedly sending abortion pills to a woman in Texas. In January, Louisiana indicted Dr. Carpenter.

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The warrant, which was initially reported by Abortion, Every Day on Thursday, alleges a Louisiana woman was coerced into an abortion because, while she wanted to keep her pregnancy, her partner wanted otherwise. The filing says that to get the pills, he used her email and mailing address, and then demanded she take the pills during a drive. The woman says she ingested the drugs because she was afraid for her safety, with the intention of throwing them up later.

Dr. Coeytaux is also being sued by Texas’s anti-abortion dog, John Mitchell, who is representing a man upset about his partner allegedly being mailed abortion pills.

In a declaration filed with the court, the Louisiana woman allegedly said that if “FDA required an in-person visit with a doctor before dispensing the drugs, my boyfriend would never have been able to obtain the drugs that he made me take.” In a statement to ABC News, Murrill said she “is bravely representing many [women] who are victimized by the illegal, immoral, and unethical conduct of these drug dealers.”

Neither the motion nor the declaration clarifies whether the woman’s partner was actually charged with any sort of offense.

“The real crime here seems to be the coercion that is alleged in court filings,” Michelle Erenberg, Executive Director of Lift Louisiana, explained to Jezebel in a statement. “Yet, we haven’t seen criminal charges brought against the alleged perpetrator of that crime.”

“In a suit brought on behalf of “all current and future fathers of unborn children in the United States,” plaintiff Jerry Rodriguez also wants the court to prevent his girlfriend— who is currently pregnant—from having another abortion.”

Once again it’s not about life, it’s about controlling women

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— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) July 22, 2025 at 10:59 PM

Currently, 12 states have total abortion bans, and four have near-total bans. But shield laws allow healthcare providers to prescribe and send abortion medication across state lines without fear of a fine, losing their license, or jail time. As such, anti-abortion AGs have been making it their mission to tear the protections down. Erenberg concludes: “The Attorney General is using these allegations to challenge shield laws that are providing protection for doctors who are helping women trapped in states where abortion is banned to access care.”

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