This article first appeared in our weekly newsletter, The Fallout.
While awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling on national mifepristone access, Louisiana lawmakers have taken matters a step further by labeling the abortion drug a “dangerous” and “controlled” drug. Harassment of abortion providers and patients.
SB 276 is the first bill to add mifepristone and misoprostol to the list of controlled substances under Louisiana’s “Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act.” By reclassifying the drugs as Schedule IV narcotics, lawmakers are effectively treating them on par with high-potency prescription opioids and benzodiazepines. The resulting classification would hinder access to abortion provisions and create opportunities for law enforcement to interfere.
This law would make it much more difficult for patients to obtain medications and for health care providers to prescribe them. Simply put, SB 276 is a stunning escalation of the attack on drug abortion, bringing the legal machinery of the war on drugs full circle to abortion pills.
Like all current abortion restrictions, the Louisiana law scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 is a solution to a problem. First, state law requires that medication abortions be provided in person, not via telemedicine. Therefore, reclassifying a drug as a Schedule IV narcotic makes it more difficult for providers to prescribe and more difficult for patients to access. For example, the enhanced classification means that only doctors with specific credentials can prescribe mifepristone and misoprostol.
Additionally, classifying both drugs as Schedule IV substances would impact where and how they can be stored, which could devastate any remaining limited abortion access in rural areas of the state. Additionally, the law is vague and confusing, which only further frightens health care providers trying to best serve their patients.
The bill is also a ruse. SB 276 creates an entirely new type of abortion-related crime called the “crime of coerced abortion by fraud.” This is a situation where a third party, such as a current or former partner, secretly passes abortion pills to another person without their knowledge or consent to terminate a pregnancy (this happened in Massachusetts earlier this month).
That is procreative coercion, and when it occurs it is a terrible violation. And guess what? The criminal justice system already has laws in place to resolve non-consensual situations that would not require reclassifying abortion pills as dangerous and controlled drugs. All SB 276 would achieve, in addition to further chilling abortion access in the state, would be to force more vulnerable Louisianans into a system of incarceration and reframe one of the safest medical procedures in the country as illegal and dangerous.
But importantly, this bill does not criminalize pregnant women who possess drugs without a prescription and use them for their own use. This means Louisiana residents can still take care of their own abortions on paper. But they must do so in an environment where all the power of law enforcement will soon be concentrated on medical abortion provisions.
Between this and the “abortion trafficking” legislative nonsense passing through states like Idaho;Dobbs How much power does an era end? Roe vs. Wade We forwarded it to local law enforcement. And I'm afraid we're not done with their attempts to seize power.