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Louisiana becomes first US state to classify abortion pills as controlled substances
The bill cleared Louisiana's Republican-majority House of Representatives and Senate by wide margins.
Republican Governor Jeff Landry. / Reuters
Louisiana's governor on May.24 signed a bill making his state the first in the US to classify two abortion-inducing medications as controlled substances, a category that healthcare regulators typically reserve for drugs prone to abuse or addiction.
The measure, thrusting Republican-led efforts to restrict abortion back to the political forefront in a presidential election year, was signed into law by Republican Governor Jeff Landry a day after the state legislature sent it to his desk.
The bill cleared Louisiana's Republican-majority House of Representatives and Senate by wide margins, even as efforts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to expand access to abortion pills is facing a legal challenge before the Supreme Court.
The new law designates mifepristone and misoprostol, which the FDA approved more than two decades ago as safe and effective for terminating pregnancies, as Schedule IV drugs, typically pain-killers and mood-altering medications that merit greater oversight due to their potential for abuse or dependence.
That puts the abortion pills in Louisiana in the same category as anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium, though neither mifepristone nor misoprostol is considered by the medical establishment to pose an addiction hazard.
Still, the reclassification makes it riskier for Louisiana residents, who are already subject to a near-total ban on surgical and medication-induced abortions, to obtain the pills from out of state or order them online without a prescription.
Critics say the measure will also make it harder for patients to obtain the drugs when they are prescribed for other routine uses, such as inducing labor in childbirth, treating miscarriages and reducing the risk of serious bleeding from ulcers.
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