NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The first law of its kind to classify two abortion-inducing drugs as controlled and dangerous substances was signed Friday by Louisiana’s governor. Jeff Landry.
The Republican governor announced his signing of the bill in Baton Rouge, a day after it received final legislative approval in the Senate.
The measure affects the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used in medication abortions, the most common abortion method in the US.
Opponents of the bill included many doctors who said the drugs have other crucial uses in reproductive health care, and that changing the classification could make it more difficult to prescribe the drugs.
Supporters of the bill said it would protect expectant mothers from forced abortions, though they cited only one example in Texas.
The bill was passed as abortion opponents await a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on an effort to restrict access to mifepristone.
The new law will come into effect on October 1.
The bill began as a measure to create the crime of “forced criminal abortion through fraud.” An amendment adding the abortion drugs to the Schedule IV classification of Louisiana’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law was pushed by Senator Thomas Pressly, a Shreveport Republican and the bill’s lead sponsor.
“Requiring a prescription for an abortion-inducing drug and criminalizing the use of an abortion drug on an unsuspecting mother is nothing short of common sense,” Landry said in a statement.
Current Louisiana law already requires a prescription for both drugs and makes it a crime in most cases to use them to induce an abortion. The bill would make it more difficult to obtain the pills. Other Schedule IV drugs include the opioid tramadol and a group of depressants known as benzodiazepines.
Knowingly possessing the drugs without a valid prescription would carry a penalty, including large fines and jail time. The language in the bill appears to provide protection for pregnant women who obtain the drug without a prescription for their own use.
The classification would require doctors to be specifically licensed to prescribe the drugs, and the drugs would have to be stored in certain facilities that in some cases could be far from rural clinics.
In addition to inducing abortions, mifepristone and misoprostol have other common uses, such as treating miscarriages, inducing labor, and stopping bleeding.
More than 200 doctors in the state signed a letter to lawmakers warning that the measure could create a “barrier to physicians’ ability to prescribe the right treatment” and cause unnecessary fear and confusion for both patients and doctors. The doctors warn that any delay in getting the drugs could lead to worsening outcomes in a state with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.
Pressly said he pushed the legislation because of what happened to his sister Catherine Herring of Texas. In 2022, Herring’s husband gave her seven misoprostol pills in an attempt to induce an abortion without her knowledge or consent.
