If signed into law, the bill would make Louisiana the first state to classify medical abortion drugs alongside narcotics and opioids, as well as depressants like Xanax and Valium.
The Louisiana House on Tuesday approved a bill to add two abortion-inducing drugs to the list of Schedule IV controlled dangerous substances in the state, making it a felony for anyone to possess them without a valid prescription.
If it is signed into law as expected, Louisiana will become the first state in the country to consider the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol in the same category as narcotics and depressants, making their possession without a valid prescription a crime punishable by fines of up to $5,000 and years-long jail terms.
State Sen. Thomas Pressly is responsible for the bill’s introduction. The proposed legislation began as a means of making a crime out of “coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud”—in other words, using the drugs to induce an abortion without the consent of the pregnant person. He only attached the amendment to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol after the bill’s unanimous passage in the Senate last month.
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