An anti-abortion law that classifies the common pregnancy medication misoprostol as a controlled substance is putting women’s health at risk, from pregnancy care to cancer treatments, according to a new report from the New Orleans Health Department.
The study compiled complaints made to the health department with surveys of physicians and pharmacists, and found regular delays in accessing misoprostol, a drug used for a range of health conditions that can also be used to induce abortions, mirroring anecdotal reports in the wake of the law.
“As we suspected, this is making maternal care, both inpatient and outpatient, more risky,” said Dr. Jennifer Avegno, the director of New Orleans’ health department.
The report found delays for cancer patients, pregnancy care, fertility and contraception treatments, and it calls for Louisiana’s legislature to repeal Act 246 — the law that classified misoprostol as a controlled dangerous substance.
In one case, a woman hemorrhaging after birth waited 10 minutes for the medication after her doctor requested it.
“Having to send a nurse to go get it is another body not in the room to help manage a potentially life-threatening situation,” the woman’s OB-GYN said, according to the report. “It was very stressful and frustrating as a doctor.”
In another case, a woman bleeding after an emergency cesarean section had to wait while she bled as her doctor asked multiple times for the medication, causing her to ask her anesthesiologist: “Is this how I’m going to die?”
The report featured numerous cases of pharmacists refusing to fill the prescription for legal uses, including miscarriages.
One woman said a pharmacist told her, “he couldn’t give it to me because of Roe v. Wade.”
As part of the report, NOHD reached out to every pharmacy in Orleans and Jefferson parishes to create a map of which pharmacies carry misoprostol and the policies they follow to dispense it.
“Sometimes it's a pharmacy not carrying it, sometimes it's a pharmacist saying no, I don't think that's right, or requiring additional steps, or needing a prior authorization, or not being able to get it timely in an inpatient setting,” Avegno said. “All of that adds up to make maternal care more fragile and more complex.
Louisiana Right to Life, which helped craft the law, Sen. Thomas Pressly, who authored it, and Attorney General Liz Murrill have repeatedly said the law does not interfere with legal health care, including in emergencies. WWNO/WRKF reached out to Louisiana Right to Life and Pressly for comment and did not immediately receive a response.
Murill criticized the report.
"The report is nothing more than a biased piece of political advocacy," Murrill said in a statement. "It’s not statistically defensible and so it’s basically useless.”
Louisiana Right to Life called a lawsuit filed by maternal health groups over the law “bogus.”
Eight states introduced similar laws this year in the wake of Louisiana’s, none of which advanced out of committees, according to an analysis by NOHD.
The law set “a dangerous precedent that has harmed patients needing miscarriage management and emergency care,” Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy advisor with the Guttmacher Institute, which supports reproductive rights, said in a statement.
The restrictions on misoprostol and mifepristone, which can also induce abortions and treat miscarriages, are part of other efforts to restrict abortion access, including seeking to prosecute abortion providers who mail abortion pills to patients in Louisiana, she said.
“We cannot look at Louisiana's law as an isolated attack,” Forouzan said. “It is part of a broader campaign to undermine the most common form of abortion care nationwide and increase the risk of criminalization for providers.”
The NOHD report urges the Louisiana Department of Health and the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy to increase outreach and education to pharmacists about the law. Avegno said her department will continue to monitor the impacts of the law. It’s also in the process of contacting pharmacies across the state to build a database of where women can access the medication.
