The Louisiana House on Tuesday passed a bill that classifies the two drugs used to induce an abortion as “controlled dangerous substances.” Abortion opponents hope the measure, now on its way to Gov. Jeff Landry, will be a template for conservative states trying to end the procedure.
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Key takeaways
Summary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed.
- Would be first state to add to mifepristone, misoprostol to same category as opioids, depressants.
- Legislation, expected to be signed by governor, could be model for conservative states.
- Doctors, advocates warn of chilling effect on women’s health care, autonomy.
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If S.B. 276 is signed into law as expected by Landry (R), Louisiana would become the first state in the country to include mifepristone and misoprostol in the same category as opioids, depressants and other drugs that can be highly addictive.
The bill includes the threat of incarceration and fines for an individual possessing the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice. It exempts pregnant women from prosecution.
Louisiana already bans both medication and surgical abortions except to save a patient’s life or because a pregnancy is “medically futile.” Lawmakers recently turned down proposed exceptions for teenagers under 17 who become pregnant through rape or incest.
The language about controlled dangerous substances was added to a measure initially focused on criminalizing an abortion if someone gives a pregnant woman the pills without her consent. The amendment ignited significant concern and pushback from doctors in the state.
On Monday, the Louisiana Society of Addiction Medicine sent a letter to House Speaker Phillip DeVillier that called the bill “legislative overreach.” The group said it “goes against the spirit of the drug scheduling system, which is designed to classify substances based upon their danger, potential for misuse and medical benefit.”
A separate letter sent this month to the bill’s sponsor by more than 240 OB/GYN physicians noted misoprostol’s other critical uses, including to prevent gastrointestinal ulcers, to aid in labor and delivery, and to stop bleeding after a miscarriage. The doctors said the bill could needlessly delay care for such patients as well as increase the fears of pharmacists already questioning their risk in filling prescriptions.
“Given its historically poor maternal health outcomes, Louisiana should prioritize safe and evidence-base care for pregnant women,” they urged.
Rep. Aimee Adatto Freeman (D-New Orleans) drove home that point Tuesday. “We have the worst maternal outcomes in the nation. … Let me tell you something, 50th in maternal outcomes is not pro-life,” she angrily told her colleagues.
Attempts to curtail medication abortions — which now constitute more than half of all abortions in the United States — are part of legislative agendas not just in deep-red Louisiana but in many Republican-controlled statehouses.
In Texas, the proposed “Wrongful Death Protection Act” would have held liable those who manufacture, market, mail, distribute, transport, deliver, provide or possess mifepristone with the intent of facilitating unlawful abortions. It was debated but not passed last year.
In Indiana, a measure that would have barred the prescription or possession of abortion-inducing drugs also was proposed this year but didn’t make it out of committee.
In Oklahoma, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill this spring to make distributing abortion pills felony drug trafficking punishable by a $100,000 fine, 10 years in prison or both. It awaits action in the Senate.
“They know the positions they’re taking are extreme and unpopular,” Dana Sussman, senior vice president of the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, said of Republican lawmakers there.
In Nebraska, which passed a 12-week abortion ban last year, a mother was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to giving her teenage daughter abortion medication after at least 20 weeks gestation.
“One of the biggest problems with criminalization is everyone is afraid,” said Shelley Mann, Omaha-based executive director of Nebraska Abortion Resources, a nonprofit fund. Mann said the case there had a chilling effect, making women afraid to take abortion pills or otherwise pursue abortion in state.
Sussman said it’s not clear how Louisiana will enforce the law.
“How will prosecutors determine whether this is for one’s own use or not? Will they perform pregnancy tests? … It’s creating this idea of a surveillance state for pregnancy that feels quite dystopian,” she said.
But Sussman still expects the law to have an immediate chilling effect in Louisiana.
Medication abortion “has allowed people to maintain some bodily autonomy even in banned states, and that’s why [abortion opponents are] going after this,” she said. They also have tried to restrict abortion medication access via local travel bans and court cases.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought against the Food and Drug Administration by a group of antiabortion doctors seeking to limit access to mifepristone.
Louisiana has long been at the forefront with antiabortion legislation. Its latest effort started with the proposal by Sen. Thomas Pressly (R-Shreveport), whose former brother-in-law repeatedly tried to give the lawmaker’s sister an abortion pill without her knowledge when she was pregnant with a third child. She was “poisoned,” Rep. Julie Emerson (R-Carencro) said while presenting the measure Tuesday.
“Something that is to that level of being able to kill an unborn child, it’s always wise for it to be used under the care of a physician,” she said.
Pressly’s bill was intended to create a crime of “coerced criminal abortion,” but after S.B. 276 passed unanimously in the Senate last month, he attached the amendment to include mifepristone and misoprostol under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law.
On both, Pressly worked in partnership with Louisiana Right to Life.
“Everyone was blindsided. This was attached to a very specific bill — in response to the horrible thing that happened to his sister,” Rep. Mandie Landry (D-New Orleans) noted Monday. “Then this different issue comes in. It was like the senator pulled a fast one. Changing the category of the medications is just malicious, and now every conservative state in the country will be copying it.”
Democrats tried repeatedly to delay or derail the amendment during the debate. Rep. Landry warned that it would most hurt rural communities with fewer physicians and pharmacies, stressing the many ways the two drugs are used for reasons other than abortion.
“The pills have not changed. The politics have changed,” she said, adding, “It’s pretty terrible how this good bill was hijacked by outsiders who are not doctors.”
But Rep. Debbie Villio (R-Baton Rouge) insisted physicians on both sides debated the measure in committee and accused Rep. Landry of “fearmongering” about the problems that will result from such a law.
In a statement earlier this month, Pressly said he added the amendment to “control the rampant illegal distribution of abortion-inducing drugs.”
“By placing these drugs on the controlled substance list, we will assist law enforcement in protecting vulnerable women and unborn babies,” he said.
Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, suggested lawmakers would be ignoring the medicine and science. Misoprostol “is not an addictive drug used to get high,” she said in an interview. “It has a lot of important uses — given to prevent women from bleeding out after childbirth. … To me, this is from a national conservative playbook. And this could be the test case that can be picked up by other states.”
