Louisiana lawmakers on Thursday approved a law that would make possession of abortion pills without a prescription a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
It now heads to the desk of GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, who has not spoken publicly on the legislation but is expected to sign it.
The first-in-the-nation legislation could be a model for other red states grappling with how to stop their residents from leaving the state to get abortion pills or order them online, despite their abortion ban. But people who obtain these pills do not always have prescriptions for the pills, especially if they are shipped from abroad.
Under Louisiana’s bill, pregnant women who obtain the drugs for their own use would be exempt from criminal liability. But friends or family who help them obtain the pills, and non-pregnant women who get them as a precaution, could face criminal charges for possession.
Data from the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group, shows that the number of abortions performed annually has increased in the wake of the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that struck down the law. Roe v. Wade. More than 1 million abortions were performed in the US in 2023, the last year for which reliable data is available. That represents an increase of 11 percent since 2020, and nearly two-thirds were medication abortions.
Abortion is illegal in Louisiana except to save the life of the mother and in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities.
President Joe Biden’s campaign seized on the legislation this week as an example of the “chaos” caused by the overturning of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade almost two years ago.
Under the legislation, doctors would need a special license to prescribe the drugs, and prescriptions would be cataloged in a state database, accessible to doctors, pharmacists, the Louisiana Medical Board and law enforcement agencies with a warrant. Doctors fear this could lead to increased scrutiny and doubt over their decisions to prescribe the drugs, especially in emergency situations.
Ellie Schilling, a Louisiana attorney who specializes in reproductive health law, told reporters on Wednesday that the state is actually creating a database to monitor women’s pregnancies.
“That should be unthinkable in America,” Schilling said.
Republican Senator Thomas Pressly introduced the legislation after his sister’s husband tried to end her pregnancy by spiking her drinks with abortion pills. The husband was recently sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to injuring a child and assaulting a pregnant person.
Pressly’s original bill, which received unanimous support, proposed creating a crime of “forced criminal abortion” for anyone who administers abortion pills to someone to end a pregnancy without consent. But his decision late last month to change the bill’s controlled substances provision to “control the rampant illegal distribution of abortion-inducing drugs” prompted swift reactions from doctors and abortion rights advocates.
More than 200 physicians in Louisiana said in a letter to Pressly that the legislation would result in “fear and confusion among patients, physicians and pharmacists,” delaying care and worsening outcomes.
While mifepristone is used alone to terminate pregnancies, misoprostol is also used to treat miscarriages, prepare women for endometrial biopsy, and facilitate the insertion of IUDs.
“Mischaracterization of misoprostol, a drug used routinely and safely in labor units across the state, as a dangerous drug of abuse creates confusion and misinformation and harms women seeking quality maternal care,” the letter said. “Setting this precedent threatens the safe and autonomous practice of medicine in Louisiana and will have a chilling effect on patients and healthcare providers.”
Anti-abortion advocates, including Pressly, have argued that the legislation would still allow doctors to dispense the two drugs for lawful reasons.
Sarah Zagorski, spokesperson for Louisiana Right to Life, praised Pressly on Thursday for spearheading the bill, which she said would “stop the abortion industry from profiting from the abuse and trafficking of vulnerable women through their blatantly illegal distribution of pills.”
