New Orleans City Council members plan to investigate the impacts of a new Louisiana law that will restrict common pregnancy medications that can also induce abortions.
Council members will debate a new motion on Wednesday that would task the city’s health department to “investigate and study any delay of care issues” that result from the law, which reclassifies two common pregnancy medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, as Schedule IV Controlled Dangerous Substances.
“We’re trying to get some hard facts, some hard data and demonstrate the real impacts that this has on women in the state,” Council President Helena Moreno said.
The new law — the first of its kind in the U.S. — is set to take effect Oct 1. It will make common OB-GYN drugs mifepristone and misoprostol harder to get for routine pregnancy care – including inducing labor, treating miscarriages or hemorrhaging after birth.
Physicians have been warning the law could harm women’s health by delaying access to life-saving medications. Nearly 300 signed a letter to lawmakers in the spring urging them not to pass the law, arguing that misoprostol and mifepristone aren’t addictive, unlike other scheduled drugs, and don’t belong on the list.
The law was authored by Republican state Sen. Thomas Pressly and Louisiana Right to Life, who have argued that it’s necessary to reduce the number of women ordering the medications online to give themselves abortions in the wake of Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban.
“It was all for political purposes that this was done, and it’s now putting women’s lives at risk,” Moreno said.
Under state law, controlled dangerous substances must be locked up inside hospitals and dispensed with greater oversight by pharmacists. The Louisiana Illuminator reported that misoprostol has already been removed from some obstetric hemorrhage carts and kits to comply with the law.
Under the city council’s motion, the health department would be tasked with investigating the impacts of the law by surveying doctors and pharmacists and working with hospitals to review medical records. They would also look into the possibility of launching a complaint system for patients and health care providers, Moreno said in a statement.
She said the goal is to gather enough evidence to get lawmakers to overturn the law.
“We have to push back somehow,” Moreno told WWNO/WRKF. “We want to push back with information and push back with real data, and I think this gives us our best shot for them to reverse this very dangerous law.”
Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office accused “the media, political organizations and candidates, and pro-abortion organizations” of creating “confusion and doubt” around Louisiana’s anti-abortion laws.
In a statement on Tuesday, she argued that nothing in Louisiana's near-total abortion ban and the new controlled dangerous substances law “stands in the way of a doctor providing care that stabilizes and treats emergency conditions.”
Louisiana Right to Life has also argued the law will not harm women’s health.
A series of reports have found abortion bans are dangerously changing pregnancy care in states with bans. One study released last week found increased illnesses and complications and a report last spring show that in Louisiana, miscarriage care is being delayed and some women have been given Cesarean sections instead of abortions, just so doctors can avoid the appearance of providing abortion care.
“No one is saying the legislation intends to prohibit providers from prescribing these medications,” said Michelle Erenberg, the executive director of the reproductive rights organization Lift Louisiana, said of the new controlled substances law. “What we have been saying, and what continues to be unclear, is how the added rules and regulations around prescribing and dispensing scheduled medications will impact people’s ability to get these medications without any delays or denials.”
Erenberg said allowing the health department to investigate the law’s impact is a “good step,” but that she worried about the impacts of the law on the rest of the state.
