Left goes bonkers over woman, child safety bill

The faux outrage over a commonsense bill illustrates the agenda of Louisiana’s political pro-abortion left.

SB 276 by Republican state Sen. Thomas Pressly would prohibit coerced abortion by drugs and inhibit that by making illegal purchase of over-the-counter mifepristone and misoprostol. While separately the two drugs can address certain ailments, when used together they can cause a chemical abortion, which is outlawed in Louisiana except for rare instances. As a result, possession without a prescription would be legal only for pregnant females, as the bill assumes other people will use these to coerce an abortion. A pregnant female with these in possession without prescriptions would not be breaking the law unless she subsequently consumed these to induce an abortion, under a different statute.

Pressly has a compelling story to demonstrate need for such a bill. His sister while pregnant without her knowledge was manipulated into consuming these drugs. Fortunately, her child survived but with impairment. That demonstrates the harm from misuse unambiguously. And, if taken improperly, they can have serious consequences, such as for pregnant females miscarriages, premature labor, or birth defects, or more generally several life-threatening conditions.

Leftists didn’t mind the bill when it created just the crime. But they went ballistic when putting in the bill a means to prevent the crime by making more difficult the otherwise easy obtaining of the two drugs. This is because shipping the drugs interstate has become a popular method of getting around prohibitions to abortion except in rare incidences in states like Louisiana, so this strikes directly at their ideology of abortion on demand and thwarts whatever pleasure they may receive by trying to put one over on the state in causing abortions in it despite the law.

Classifying the two as prescription needed, Schedule IV, will mean some inconvenience to providers and patients. While most providers already have the proper licensure and facilities to treat the drugs in this fashion, some may not and would have to arrange for that by the Oct. 1 effective date. Patients who now pick up the drugs off the shelf will have to arrange this through a pharmacy.

This the left has decried, but their apocalyptic characterization of the change is way overblown. Minor changes will set up a smooth system of dispensing, and their non-abortifacient uses – controlling hyperglycemia, treating certain types of brain tumors, combatting endometriosis or fibroids, preventing ulcers, inducing labor early – don’t require immediate or emergency application that might be slowed through a prescription regime.

The left also has attempted another hollow argument against the change, that controlled substances “usually” are addictive and so therefore somehow this disqualifies the reclassification. That’s irrelevant: if something is casually available and dangerous that can cause harm to others if surreptitiously introduced, increased regulation is entirely appropriate to reduce the chances of improper administration, regardless of its addictive qualities. After all, even as its possession in the U.S. is illegal, the trade-named Rohypnol – a relaxant that can so incapacitate people when surreptitiously administered as to make them vulnerable to physical harm including rape – is not addictive but legally treated in exactly the same fashion at the federal level.

There’s absolute justification to classify these drugs as harmful enough to make them subject to prescription, which has made leftist opposition even more shrill to deflect from that. The bill will return to the Senate with expected concurrence and then signed into law by GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, providing a rare instance where the state provides positive policy leadership.

On the whole, the law’s coming into effect won’t make that much of a difference. Informed users – in tandem, the drugs can do this until about 10 weeks into a pregnancy – will contract with an out-of-state provider in states where abortion remains legal in various forms, as pro-abortionist doctors and special interests already have established networks to accomplish this, to obtain the pills whether by prescription. Others – or even those wanting to coerce a chemical abortion – will take a chance through illegal means of obtaining. There will be some deterrence, but not a whole lot.

Yet the left has gone bonkers about this, precisely because it closes even slightly the pill pipeline loophole. Most laughably, it disingenuously claims the different treatment will affect maternal health outcomes which objectively clearly is highly unlikely, yet doesn’t mention at all the threat to children’s health, specifically at nearly a 100 percent fatality rate, through misuse of the pills that the bill reduces.

But it’s never been about health or safety with that crowd, only about cranking out as many abortions as possible. Which will have long-term political ramifications not to its liking, as a future post will show.