Baton Rouge, Louisiana - Louisiana has indicted a New York-based doctor accused of supplying abortion drugs to a minor in the southern state which enforces a strict ban, local media reported Friday.

Louisiana has some of the strictest laws restricting abortion following the 2022 overturn of the longstanding Roe v. Wade ruling by the US Supreme Court, which turned the issue over to the states.

"I think we're the first state... I don't know of any other state to charge the clinic and the doctor," one of the prosecutors who brought the case, Tony Clayton, told local media in Louisiana.

A grand jury issued an indictment for "criminal abortion" using medication against Margaret Carpenter, her clinic Nightingale Medical, and the mother of the minor who received the pill, local media reported.

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"Dr. Carpenter, who has Nightingale abortion clinics, she mails out these abortion pills throughout the entire country," Clayton said in a radio interview.

"Here, the mother gave it to her minor child. (The) minor child was home alone. Felt that she had to take the pill because of what her mother told her, took the pill... The next day she felt something happening with her body" as the medication took effect, he said.

Shortly after the indictment was issued, Attorney General Letitia James of New York State, which continues to permit abortion, publicly defended Carpenter.

"This cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American. We will not allow bad actors to undermine our providers' ability to deliver critical care," James said.

"Medication abortion is safe, effective, and necessary, and New York will ensure that it remains available to all Americans who need it."

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The Center for Reproductive Rights said on X that "medication abortion is SAFE and EFFECTIVE... Abortion providers SAVE LIVES and must be protected."

Many conservative states have banned or severely restricted abortion since the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Now, nearly one in three US women between the ages of 18 and 44 lives in one of those states, according to the Politifact website.

But 18 states, including New York, have passed laws protecting doctors from prosecution elsewhere in the country.

Clayton conceded that he would come up against this "shield law" – but said Carpenter would have a problem if she traveled to a state that had a reciprocity agreement with Louisiana.

The Louisiana court did not respond to a request for comment.