Main: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about the implementation of Florida’s abortion ban at an event Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux); Inset: Louisiana State Sen. Thomas Pressly (R) discusses the Louisiana House’s vote to pass S.B. 276, which adds mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s list of controlled substances (screengrab via NBC News).
In the most extreme legal action yet taken on abortion pills, Louisiana lawmakers approved a bill Tuesday that would add mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s list of controlled substances.
The drugs, which are also used to prevent ulcers stop post-miscarriage bleeding, would be placed in the same category as opioids and other highly-addictive drugs. Medical professionals have spoken out against the measure, saying the medications have critical uses outside of abortion care, including aiding in labor and delivery, miscarriage treatment, and the prevention of gastrointestinal ulcers.
Louisiana bans all abortions regardless of method except to save a patient’s life or when pregnancy is “medically futile” — meaning that the fetus has a fatal abnormality. State lawmakers recently rejected proposed exceptions for rape and incest victims under 17 who become pregnant.
Louisiana S.B. 276 codifies “criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drug,” and prohibits individuals from possessing either of the two pills without a valid prescription or outside a professional practice. While the bill exempts pregnant women from prosecution, it imposes the threat of serious fines and prison time for offenders. The legislation passed the state House of Representatives 64-29 after over an hour of debate.
Anyone who commits the crime of “coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud” under the statute “shall be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than five nor more than ten years, fined not less than ten thousand nor more than seventy-five thousand dollars, or both.” Should the pregnant person be more than three months pregnant at the time of the abortion, the offender would be subject to 10 to 20 years in prison and a $50,000 to $100,000 fine.
The bill was sponsored by Louisiana Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, who notably forgot the name of one of the drugs while introducing the legislation.
Earlier this month, over 200 OB-GYN physicians sent an open letter to Pressly urging him to withdraw the bill and arguing that mifepristone and misoprostol do not belong on a list of controlled substances any more than insulin, Viagra, or Ozempic do. The legislation at issue would classify the drugs in the same category as Xanax and Valium, stimulants, sleep aids, and muscle relaxants.
Likewise, the Louisiana Society of Addiction Medicine sent a letter to the Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier before the vote warning that adding mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s controlled dangerous substances list could increase “deaths in post-partum women … where maternal mortality rates are already notoriously high.”
Smita Prasad, the president of the society, said in the letter that the group does not condone the “weaponizing of medication,” and relayed that she herself took misoprostol to prevent life-threatening hemorrhaging after the birth of her daughter.
The bill now heads back to the state Senate, where it is expected to be quickly approved, then to Gov. Jeff Landry for signing into law.
Louisiana’s first-of-its-kind legislation sparked immediate reaction from leaders across the country.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey posted on X, formerly Twitter:
I’m disgusted by the Louisiana House vote to criminalize possession of the abortion pills mifepristone & misoprostol.
That’s why I’ve introduced legislation to protect mifepristone & the right to choose for women across the country, like we do here in NJ.
— Rep Josh Gottheimer (@RepJoshG) May 21, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris similarly posted:
Absolutely unconscionable. The Louisiana House just passed a bill that would criminalize the possession of medication abortion, with penalties of up to several years of jail time.
Let’s be clear: Donald Trump did this.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 21, 2024
Pressly responded immediately to Harris’s post, accusing the vice president of “blatantly lying” and urging her to “do better.”
No, @KamalaHarris, what’s unconscionable is blatantly lying about my bill. Leaving out the part about “not having a valid prescription” & our efforts to protect expectant mothers from being slipped abortion meds by diabolical spouses, that’s kind of a big omission. Do better.
— Thomas Pressly (@TAPressly) May 22, 2024
Pressly has said that the issue of abortion pills is highly personal to him because of the experience of his sister, Catherine Herring. Herring’s estranged husband pleaded guilty slipping abortion medication into her drinks while she was pregnant with their third child and was sentenced to 180 days in jail for his crime.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March over mifepristone. A ruling is expected in that case before the close of the Court’s term this summer. The litigation involves a group of anti-abortion doctors who claim the justices should uphold a lower court’s ruling directing the Federal Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 20-year-old approval of the drug because they have an objection to treating patients who have taken the drug.
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