Louisiana lawmakers have added two drugs commonly used in pregnancy and reproductive health care to the state's list of controlled dangerous substances, a move that has alarmed doctors in the state. Mifepristone and misoprostol have many clinical uses, and one use approved by the FDA is to take the pills to induce an abortion at up to 10 weeks of gestation. The bill that moved through the Louisiana Legislature this spring lists both medications as Schedule IV drugs under the state's Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law, creating penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught with the drugs without a valid prescription.
Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed the bill into law in May. It takes effect Oct.
1. The new law is the latest move by anti-abortion advocates trying to control access to abortion medications in states with near-total abortion bans, such as Louisiana. The law is the first of its kind, opening a new front in the state-by-state battle over reproductive medicine.
Republican-controlled states have passed various laws regulating medication abortion in the past, said Daniel Grossman, an OB-GYN and a reproductive health researcher at the University of California-San Francisco. But after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision in 2022, in which the Supreme Court ruled there was no constitutional right to an abortion, scrutiny of medication abortions escalated as clinics in certain states shuttered completely or were required to sto.
