BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Louisiana’s new law classifying two widely used abortion drugs as “controlled dangerous substances” was challenged in a state court lawsuit Thursday by a doctor, a pharmacist and others who say the law creates unnecessary, threatening Delays in treatment for medical emergencies.
Although Louisiana already had a near-total ban on abortion, including on medication, the reclassification of the drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol, which also have other crucial reproductive health uses — went into effect earlier this month. Supporters of the law said greater drug monitoring and control is needed to prevent forced abortions. They used the example of a case from Texas in which a pregnant woman was given seven misoprostol tablets by her husband without her knowledge. The baby survived.
Doctors critical of the law say it could harm patients facing emergency complications such as postpartum hemorrhage by requiring medical staff to go through additional steps and stricter storage requirements to apply the drugs.
“Even brief delays in access to misoprostol can be life-threatening for patients experiencing postpartum hemorrhage,” the lawsuit states. It says the law violates the Louisiana Constitution in several ways, including a ban on discrimination based on a person’s physical condition.
Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill said she had not seen the lawsuit as of Thursday afternoon. “I cannot respond to a lawsuit we have not seen, but I am confident that this law is constitutional,” she said in a statement. “We will defend it vigorously.”
In addition to the doctor and pharmacist identified as pregnant in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs in the case also include the Birthmark Doula Collective, an organization of people trained to care for pregnant women before, during and after birth.
Other plaintiffs include Nancy Davis, a woman who was denied an abortion in Louisiana and left the state after learning her fetus would not survive. A woman who said she was turned away from two emergency rooms rather than seek treatment for a miscarriage is also part of the lawsuit.
Before the reclassification, a prescription was still required to receive mifepristone and misoprostol in Louisiana. The new law reclassified the pills as “Schedule IV drugs,” putting them in the same category as the opioid tramadol and other substances that can be addictive.
The new classification means that someone who knowingly possesses mifepristone or misoprostol without a valid prescription for any purpose could be fined up to $5,000 and jailed for one to five years.
The law provides protection measures for pregnant women who receive the drug for self-administration without a prescription.
The law is the first of its kind in the United States. While GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, many Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion groups have touted the new classification, doctors have warned of deadly delays the law could cause.
Doctors say there are additional steps and stricter storage requirements under the new classification that could snail-paced access to the drugs in emergency situations. In addition to inducing abortions, the pills are also used to treat miscarriages, induce labor, and stop bleeding.
Before the law, some doctors said misoprostol would be kept in a box in the hospital room, on the delivery table or in a nurse’s bag. However, under the new classification requirements, the medications may be in a locked container down the hall or perhaps in the on-site pharmacy of smaller hospitals.
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McGill reported from New Orleans.
