Louisiana officially became the first state to reclassify abortion pills as a controlled substance, making possession of the pills without a prescription a crime.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed legislation that reclassifies misoprostol and mifepristone as Schedule IV drugs into law on Friday, now putting the drugs in the same category as others like Valium, Xanax, and medicine used to treat ADHD, further restricting their access. The classification requires doctors to have a specific license to prescribe the drugs, and to store medicine in separate facilities, that in some cases could mean being stored far from rural clinics in the state.
Misoprostol and mifepristone can be used together to induce abortion by blocking the hormones necessary to sustain a pregnancy, and causing cramping and bleeding to empty the uterus. The drugs, which have been found to be overwhelmingly safe, are often used in medical contexts outside abortion, such as treating miscarriages and inducing labor.
Pregnant women are reportedly exempt from prosecution under this law, but other people who possess the pills without a valid prescription face fines and as many as five years in prison.
According to AP, more than 200 doctors in Louisiana signed a letter to lawmakers saying the measure would create a “barrier to physicians’ ease of prescribing appropriate treatment” and lead to “fear and confusion among both patients and doctors.”
“This goes too far. We have not properly vetted this with the health care community and I believe it’s going to lead to further harm down the road,” Democratic Sen. Royce Duplessis, who voted against the measure, said according to ABC News. “There’s a reason we rank at the bottom in terms of maternal health outcomes, and this is why.”
According to the CDC, Louisiana has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.
Brittany Fonteno, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation said in a statement sent to Teen Vogue, “These medications are an essential part of the full spectrum of pregnancy care and this law will have a chilling effect on doctors and pharmacists that could delay care and worsen patient outcomes in a state that already suffers from the worst maternal health outcomes in the nation, especially for Black women and people in rural areas.”
“A ‘controlled substance’ designation also enables states to create a database of who's receiving the drugs,” Fonteno continued, “which could be particularly frightening and dangerous for people seeking abortion care."
President Biden called the legislation "outrageous" in a statement on Thursday and said it was a "direct result” of Trump’s involvement in the overturn of Roe v. Wade. “This is a scary time for women across America. If Donald Trump regains power, he will try to make what is happening in states like Louisiana a reality nationwide.” Louisiana already bans both medication and surgical abortions except to save the mother's life.
The bill's enactment comes as the American public awaits a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether to curtail access to abortion pill mifepristone. Most recently, the Court appeared poised to allow the drug to remain widely available, however a decision in the case is expected by the end of June or early July.
According to new data from sexual and reproductive health research group, Guttmacher Institute, use of medication abortion within the formal health care system in the US has risen from about half, (53%) of all abortions in 2020 to nearly two-thirds (63%) of all abortions in 2023.
