Louisiana Moves to Stamp Abortion Pills as Dangerous Substances

The Louisiana Senate voted to send a bill to the governor’s desk that would make it the only US state to impose criminal fines on the possession of abortion medication without a prescription.

The bill (SB276), which passed Thursday in a 29-7 vote, would add mifepristone and misoprostol—the two drugs used in the FDA-approved regimen to induce an abortion—to the list of Schedule IV drugs under Louisiana’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law. Drugs under this category include medications that can be highly addictive, such as some narcotics, anxiety treatments like Xanax and Valium, and the insomnia medication Ambien.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the bill, which passed the House May 21 in a 64-29 vote.

The legislation, which is supported by Louisiana Right to Life, sparked vocal pushback from Democrats and reproductive health groups after House Republicans added the classification change in an amendment to an initial bill from state Sen. Thomas Pressly (R). The legislation originally focused on criminalizing the act of giving a woman an abortion-inducing drug without her knowledge or consent. Pressly has said the bill was inspired by his sister, whose ex-husband was accused of slipping abortion-inducing medication into her drinks when she was pregnant.

“The public risk of harm is enough” for the medications to be placed on the controlled dangerous substance list, Pressly argued in floor remarks ahead of the vote Thursday.

The US Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly defended the safety of mifepristone, which is approved for use as the first drug to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation. Misoprostol, the second drug used in the medication abortion regimen, is approved by the FDA to reduce the risk of ulcers caused by prolonged anti-inflammatory use. Mifepristone and misoprostol are also widely used off label to manage miscarriages.

Public Outcry

Health-care providers and reproductive health groups have condemned the amendment, arguing the drugs are safe and don’t pose the same risks that Schedule IV substances can. They also say restricting their use could have a chilling effect on abortion and reproductive health care and threaten to worsen maternal health outcomes.

Democrats had sought to stop the bill from moving forward, with state Sen. Royce Duplessis (D) arguing in remarks on the Senate floor that the amendment added by the House “has not been properly vetted by the public” or “by the medical community.”

More than 200 Louisiana doctors wrote in an open letter to Pressly this month that “neither mifepristone nor misoprostol have been shown to have any potential for abuse, dependence, public health risk, nor high rates of adverse side effects.”

“Adding a safe, medically indicated drug for miscarriage management, prevention of ulcer, or to induce normal labor to a Controlled Substance Schedule creates the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation,” the doctors said.

State Rep. Mandie Landry (D), who has helped lead the opposition to Pressly’s legislation, said in an interview ahead of the Senate vote that it’s “completely improper to put something that is not addictive or does not have the ability to be abused in any way on this schedule.”

The legislation also received criticism from the Louisiana Society of Addiction Medicine, which wrote in a May 21 letter to House Speaker Phillip R. DeVillier (R) that the bill was “incongruent with the purpose and intent of the scheduling system of substances” that classifies “based upon their danger, potential for misuse, and their medical usefulness.”

Abortion is completely banned in Louisiana with limited exceptions for substantial risk of death or “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” for the pregnant individual, or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. The Republican-dominated legislature rejected a bill earlier this month that would have added exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.