BATON ROUGE, La. (BP) – The Louisiana House passed a bill May 21 designating abortion pills as controlled substances, classifying their use as racketeering and creating the crime of coerced criminal abortion.
Designating mifepristone and misoprostol Schedule IV controlled substances, on par with various sedatives, pain pills and depression and anxiety drugs with a low potential for abuse and dependence, is the House’s main amendment to Senate bill 276 the Senate passed in April.
The Senate’s approval of the amended bill, on the chamber’s May 22 docket, would make Louisiana the first state to designate as controlled substances the drugs used in combination to induce abortion, and for other pregnancy-related conditions including managing miscarriages and inducing labor.
Jason Thacker, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission senior fellow in life and bioethics, said such legislation is needed in the current age.
“With more than half of all abortions in America now being performed through the two-step abortion pill regimen,” Thacker said, “it is clear that concrete steps must be taken to restrict the illegal distribution of these drugs and do all that we can as a society to champion the dignity of both the pre-born and their vulnerable mothers.
“Arguing that bodily autonomy or mere personal choice should govern all abortion-related decisions fails to account for the deadly and deeply dehumanizing outcome of all abortion practices,” said Thacker, who is also an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College. “Legislation like this must recognize these realities as well as the dangers to women who take this medication who should be under the care of a physician.”
Read the full Baptist Press article here.
