By Steve Gorman
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has signed a first-of-its-kind bill classifying two abortion-inducing drugs as controlled and dangerous substances. File photo. Photo: AP / Hilary Scheinuk
Louisiana's governor on Friday signed a bill making his state the first in the US to classify two abortion-inducing medications as controlled substances, a category that healthcare regulators typically reserve for drugs prone to abuse or addiction.
The measure, thrusting Republican-led efforts to restrict abortion back to the political forefront in a presidential election year, was signed into law by Republican Governor Jeff Landry a day after the state legislature sent it to his desk.
The bill cleared Louisiana's Republican-majority House of Representatives and Senate by wide margins, even as efforts by the US Food and Drug Administration to expand access to abortion pills is facing a legal challenge before the Supreme Court.
The new law designates mifepristone and misoprostol, which the FDA approved more than two decades ago as safe and effective for terminating pregnancies, as Schedule IV drugs, meaning they merit greater oversight due to the potential for abuse or dependence.
That puts the abortion pills in Louisiana in the same category as anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium, though neither mifepristone or misoprostol is considered by the medical establishment to pose a hazard of tolerance or addiction.
Still, the reclassification makes it riskier for Louisiana residents, who are already subject to a near-total ban on surgical and medication-induced abortions, to obtain the pills from out of state or order them online without a prescription.
Critics say the measure will also make it harder for patients to obtain the drugs when they are prescribed for other uses, such as inducing labour in childbirth, treating miscarriages and reducing the risk of serious bleeding from ulcers.
Doctors will need a special licence to prescribe the drugs, and those prescriptions are entered into a state database that law enforcement can access without a warrant. Critics say that situation could compromise patient privacy and expose physicians to unwarranted investigation.
"It creates more onus, more chaos and confusion for people accessing this medication," said Kirsten Moore, who heads the non-profit Expanding Mediation Abortion Access (EMMA) Project, adding that the overall intent is to "put mifepristone and misoprostol back under lock and key".
The bill makes unprescribed possession of the pills a crime punishable by one to five years in prison and fines of up to US$5000 (NZ$8165).
Although pregnant women are expressly exempt from punishment for violation of the measure, any other person who might help them obtain the drugs, such as friends, family members or healthcare providers, could be subject to prosecution.
Women who are not pregnant but obtain the pills to have on hand as a precaution are likewise not exempt.
The drug reclassification was added as an amendment to a bill specifically outlawing "coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud", making it a crime for abortion-inducing medication to be administered to an unsuspecting pregnant woman without her consent.
Supporters said placing mifepristone and misoprostol under greater regulatory control is intended to curtail their distribution for illicit purposes, such as coerced medication abortions that the larger bill aims to prevent.
The measure's chief sponsor, Senator Thomas Pressly, named the bill for his sister whose then-husband slipped abortion drugs he obtained from Mexico into her drinks, causing her serious health effects and causing the premature birth of her daughter, who survived. The husband, whom she divorced, was later convicted in a domestic violence case and sentenced to 180 days in jail.
Abortion rights groups decried the bill as part of a larger Republican-driven effort to criminalise abortion since the Supreme Court's conservative majority in 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that made access to abortion a constitutional right nationwide.
That reversal left it up to individual states to regulate abortion largely as they saw fit.
The Supreme Court in March heard oral arguments in a case challenging FDA regulations that expanded access to mifepristone, such as allowing the drug to be prescribed by telemedicine and dispensed by mail. In their line of questioning, the justices appeared sceptical about siding with anti-abortion groups on the issue.
- Reuters
