Legislators in Louisiana passed a bill Thursday that would make it a felony to possess abortion drugs without a doctor’s prescription. The maximum sentence is ten years in jail.
Republican Governor Jeff Landry has not yet spoken publicly on the bill, but he is anticipated to sign it once it reaches his desk.
This groundbreaking law could serve as an example for other red states that are also trying to figure out how to prevent their citizens from circumventing their abortion laws by going out of state or buying abortion pills online. Unfortunately, not everyone who gets their hands on those drugs has a valid prescription, especially if they come from a foreign country.
The proposed law in Louisiana would absolve pregnant women who legally acquire the medicine for personal use from any criminal responsibility. Anyone who assists them in obtaining the tablets, including non-pregnant women who do so for safety reasons, may be subject to criminal penalties for possession.
An abortion rights advocacy group called the Guttmacher Institute revealed that after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, the number of abortions conducted each year increased. The United States carried out over one million abortions in 2023, the most recent year for which accurate statistics are accessible. Almost two-thirds of those abortions were induced by medicine, and that’s an 11% rise from 2020.
The only two exceptions to the state’s ban on abortion are when the mother’s life is in danger or when a dangerous fetal abnormality is present.
The vice presidential candidate’s campaign has used this week’s legislation to highlight the “chaos” caused by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade over two years ago.
Doctors would be required to obtain a specialized license in order to write these prescriptions, and a state database would store all of the prescriptions, which would be accessible to anyone with a warrant, including pharmacists, the Louisiana medical board, and law enforcement. The possibility of increased monitoring and doctors questioning their drug prescription judgments, particularly in urgent cases, is a major concern for doctors.
On Wednesday, reproductive health law expert Ellie Schilling informed reporters that the state of Louisiana is essentially creating a registry to track pregnant women.
“That ought to be inconceivable in the United States,” Schilling stated.
After his sister’s husband attempted to terminate her pregnancy by poisoning her drinks with abortion pills, Republican state senator Thomas Pressly introduced the bill. The husband recently received a six-month prison sentence following his guilty pleas to charges of assaulting a pregnant woman and harming a child.
The initial, unanimously-supported bill by Pressly sought to make it a felony of “coerced criminal abortion” to unlawfully deliver abortion drugs to another person in order to end a pregnancy. However, medical professionals and those who support abortion rights quickly reacted negatively to his decision to change the bill’s controlled substances provision in order to “control the rampant illegal distribution of abortion-inducing drugs” late last month.
Concerned that the bill would cause “fear and confusion among patients, doctors, and pharmacists” to put off treatment and lead to worse results, over 200 Louisiana doctors wrote to Pressly to express their concerns.
Misoprostol has multiple uses, including treating miscarriages, easing the insertion of intrauterine devices (IUDs), and preparing women for endometrial biopsies, whereas mifepristone is exclusively used to terminate pregnancies.
“Confusion and misinformation is created and women seeking high quality maternal care are harmed by the mischaracterization of misoprostol as a dangerous drug of abuse,” the letter stated, referring to the medicine that is routinely and safely administered on labor units throughout the state. “The safe and autonomous practice of medicine in Louisiana is threatened by setting this precedent, which will chill both patients and providers.”
Pressly and others who oppose abortion have claimed that doctors would still be able to legally prescribe the two drugs under the new rule.
According to Sarah Zagorski, a representative from Louisiana Right to Life, the bill would “stop the abortion industry from profiting off of abuse and trafficking of vulnerable women through their flagrantly illegal distribution of pills.” Pressly was praised for introducing the measure on Thursday.