Louisiana Republicans: Regulate Abortion Pill As Dangerous Substance

 

The Malignant Loser likes to proudly point to the end of Roe v. Wade as a way for States to decide how they want to take reproductive freedom away from women.  Let's see how that's working out in Republican- dominated Louisiana:

Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice.

Legislators [Republican legislators, dammit] in Baton Rouge added the provision as a last-minute amendment to a Senate bill that would criminalize an abortion if someone gives a pregnant woman the pills without her consent, a scenario of “coerced criminal abortion” that nearly occurred with one senator’s sister.

A pregnant woman obtaining the two drugs “for her own consumption” would not be at risk of prosecution. But, with the exception of a health-care practitioner, a person helping her get the pills would be.

Louisiana already bans both medication and surgical abortions except to save a patient’s life or because a pregnancy is “medically futile.” Lawmakers just rejected adding exceptions for teenagers under 17 who become pregnant through rape or incest.

The amendment would list mifepristone and misoprostol under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law, which regulates depressants, opioids and other drugs that can be highly addictive. It elicited a strong reaction from more than 240 Louisiana doctors, who called it “not scientifically based.”

“Adding a safe, medically indicated drug for miscarriage management … creates the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation,” they wrote in a letter sent last week to the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Thomas Pressly. They noted misoprostol’s other critical uses, including to prevent gastrointestinal ulcers and to aid in labor and delivery.

“Given its historically poor maternal health outcomes, Louisiana should prioritize safe and evidence-based care for pregnant women,” they urged...

Here's what Physicians for Human Rights has to say about how Republicans in Louisiana have criminalized care both before and since 6 Republican "justices" (three appointed by the Malignant Loser) overturned 50 years of precedent in 2022:

... Louisiana has been one of the most aggressive in enacting and enforcing legal bans on abortion. Even before the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022, it had one of the most restrictive and punitive anti-abortion legal frameworks in the U.S.. The state legislature enacted a trigger ban with very narrow exceptions as early as 2006 to prohibit abortion immediately if Roe were ever to be overturned. The state legislature also increased legal and professional penalties for those providing abortion care just before the Dobbs ruling, with penalties of up to 15 years imprisonment and $200,000 in fines. Just days after Dobbs was decided, the state’s Attorney General (now the state’s Governor) sent a letter to the Louisiana State Medical Society threatening legal action against any clinician who provided abortion care in the state...

Never forget, or let anyone you know forget:  the Malignant Loser did this, and he's proud that he did. When MAGAt Republicans try to whitewash or obfuscate their position on reproductive rights, don't ever believe them.  Just like their cult leader, if their lips are moving, they're lying.

(Photo: Paul Weaver/ SOPA Images/ LightRocket via Getty Images)