--- title: "Deranged Anti-Abortion Law Will Keep Hospitals From Saving Dying Women, Doctors Say" description: "A Louisiana abortion law could cause doctors to take misopristol, used to treat life-threatening postpartum hemorrhaging, off emergency carts." date: "2024-09-06" modified: "2024-09-06" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/deranged-abortion-law" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "RX and Medicine" tags: - "abortion" - "health" - "reproductive health" - "roe v wade" --- # Deranged Anti-Abortion Law Will Keep Hospitals From Saving Dying Women, Doctors Say ![A Louisiana abortion law could cause doctors to take misopristol, used to treat life-threatening postpartum hemorrhaging, off emergency carts.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* In May, the Louisiana state legislature passed an [unfathomably stupid and unscientific law]() that reclassified the increasingly politicized drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, which are in some cases used to induce abortions, as "controlled dangerous substances." The law was idiotic for a slew of reasons, one of them being that these drugs aren't just used to terminate unwanted or [doomed pregnancies](). They're also used to safely assist women who have miscarried, and in the case of misoprostol, used as a life-saving emergency medicine to treat postpartum hemorrhaging. And now, [as a devastating report by the *Louisiana Illuminator* reveals](), Louisiana hospitals are starting to pull misoprostol off their emergency carts due to the drug's catastrophically dumb new categorization — an entirely avoidable outcome that, doctors warn, could result in women losing their lives. "It is causing a lot of confusion and angst just not understanding, just not knowing," one OB-GYN, who opted to stay anonymous for the security of her job, told the *Illuminator*. "They're still trying to figure out what to do." Mifepristone and misoprostol have no risk of dependency, and [have been used safely under Federal Drug Administration guidelines]() for more than 20 years. Under the new law, however, mifepristone and misoprostol are considered Schedule IV substances in Louisiana, ranking them alongside addictive opioids and depressants. This means that prescriptions are much more difficult to obtain, and carrying or providing the drugs without prescriptions may carry civil and even criminal fines and penalties that could apply to patients *and* doctors. **C**rucially, the law doesn't provide any guidance for these drugs' use in emergency settings, including misopristol's often essential role in halting life-threatening postpartum blood loss. That means patients and doctors will have to go through a time-consuming pharmacy process to obtain it, which in turn renders it pretty much impossible for doctors to use in emergency settings without risking possibly life-changing penalizations. In other words, the new law has completely disrupted safe, standardized emergency interventions for preventing maternal deaths. (According to the *Illuminator*, one physician in the state compared the situation to not being allowed to use an EpiPen on patients experiencing deadly anaphylactic shock.) "The physician community that I work within is certainly anxious about what the changes to the normal process will be," Stacey Holman, a division director at the Touro hospital's maternal child services, told the *Illuminator*. "It's an unnecessary barrier and really critical to the regular everyday care that we provide to our patients." "We're trying to fix something that is not broken," Holman added, "and that is absolutely safe." Louisiana has also done such a poor job at actually communicating the stupid legislation that, per the *Illuminator*, some doctors working at rural hospitals *didn't even know* that the law would likely force medical systems to remove misoprostol from emergency carts. "What? That's terrifying," one rural physician told the *Illuminator*. "Take it off the carts? That's death. That's a matter of life or death." The law is set to go into effect on October 1. Per the report, over 50 doctors in the state last month signed a letter addressed to Louisiana Department of Health and Surgeon General Ralph Abraham pleading for additional guidance for misoprostol in emergency settings before that date. Abraham, a former US Congressman and longtime anti-abortion figure, has yet to respond. And yet it's worth noting that Abraham faced [allegations during his 2019 governor run]() of overprescribing opioids — in other words, *actual dangerous substances that should be controlled —* during his years as a practicing physician. He was appointed to his cabinet role by current Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, who [as *Jezebel* ]()[reported in 2022]() withheld New Orleans' emergency flood response funds in a ploy to pressure officials to enforce the state's extreme abortion ban. The lack of comprehensibility of the new legislation is indicative of how profoundly shortsighted — and consequential — it is. As [*The Washington Post* reported in May](), the bill's main author was Louisiana state senator Thomas Pressly, whose sister experienced something genuinely horrifying: while pregnant, she was fed misoprostol without her knowledge by her husband. That's an awful thing. But it's also exceedingly rare, and completely misrepresents the proven safety of these drugs overall. And in using an exceptional situation as the rule — as opposed to using established science and proven healthcare precedents to formulate legislation that impacts the medical system — Pressly, Landry, and everyone else who put this law into effect might put many *more* women's lives and healths at unnecessary risk. "We are not going to put patients in harm's way," Holman, the Touro director, told the *Illuminator*. "We are going to figure out solutions to this, but we're going through a lot of steps and figuring out a lot of things for a medication that is actually safe." **More on what could be the dumbest of abortion laws out there:** [*Louisiana House Passes Unbelievably Stupid Bill That Classifies Extremely Safe Abortion Pills as "Controlled Dangerous Substances"*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()