18 May—There’s legislation pending down in Louisiana to reclassify two prescription drugs that are commonly used abortifacients as so-called controlled dangerous substances under state law. Thus, the synthetic steroid mifepristone and the synthetic prostaglandin misoprostol, both of which can be and are in fact used for purposes other than inducing abortions, have hit the news again.

It’s already a crime to provide an abortion in Louisiana, including by “delivering, dispensing, distributing, or providing” an “abortion-inducing drug” to a “pregnant person” (i.e., woman). The only lawful way for a pregnant person (i.e., woman) to get the drugs is in person and no other means of delivery is specifically excluded from proscription. Telemedicine prescriptions for misoprostol and mefipristone are verboten in Louisiana despite federal guidance to the contrary.

Fifty years in the slammer under certain circumstances. Does Louisiana still have chain gangs?

So the proposed legislation is really no big deal, because even though people caught using the drugs without valid prescriptions could face up to 10 years up the river, physicians in Louisiana would still be allowed to prescribe the drugs and women who use mifepristone and misoprostol as abortificients would be exempted from criminal liability. Still, many—possibly most—doctors in the state are bent out of shape at the prospect.

Of some concern to the pro-choice sector, moreover, is that Louisiana—as reactionary one-party Republican as Connecticut is sadly one-party Democrat—is the first state to consider such legislation and could very well be paving the way for other reactionary states. After all, isn’t the intent of right-to-lifers to make legal abortions next to impossible to implement and painful to undergo if they can’t be banned completely?

It’s worth noting that the sponsor of the disgraceful legislation, a Republican (of course) lawyer and state senator called Thomas Pressly, at a recorded conference about his reprehensible bill, was able to remember the name of misopropol but couldn’t come up with mifepristone and had to be prompted by a female person (i.e., woman) at the conference.

At least Pressly didn’t call it MifePrestone . . .