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      Louisiana expected to classify abortion pills as controlled and dangerous substances

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      Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.Supporters of the reclassification of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as “abortion pills”, say it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions. Numerous doctors, meanwhile, have said it will make it harder for them to prescribe the medicines they use for other important reproductive healthcare needs, and could delay treatment.Louisiana currently has a near-total abortion ban in place, applying both to surgical and medical abortions. The GOP-dominated legislature’s push to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol could possibly open the door for other Republican states with abortion bans that are seeking tighter restrictions on the drugs.Current Louisiana law already requires a prescription for both drugs and makes it a crime to use them to induce an abortion in most cases. The bill would make it harder to obtain the pills by placing them on the list of Schedule IV drugs under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law.The classification would require doctors to have a specific license to prescribe the drugs, which would be stored in certain facilities that in some cases could end up being located far from rural clinics. Knowingly possessing the drugs without a valid prescription would carry a punishment including hefty fines and jail time.Supporters say people would be prevented from unlawfully using the pills, though language in the bill appears to carve out protections for pregnant people who obtain the drug without a prescription for their own consumption.More than 200 doctors in the state signed a letter to lawmakers warning that it could produce a “barrier to physicians’ ease of prescribing appropriate treatment” and cause unnecessary fear and confusion among both patients and doctors. The physicians warn that any delay to obtaining the drugs could lead to worsening outcomes in a state that has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.In addition to inducing abortions, mifepristone and misoprostol have other common uses, such as treating miscarriages, inducing labor and stopping hemorrhaging.Mifepristone was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2000 after federal regulators deemed it safe and effective for ending early pregnancies. It’s used in combination with misoprostol, which the FDA has separately approved to treat stomach ulcers.The drugs are not classified as controlled substances by the federal government because regulators do not view them as carrying a significant risk of misuse. The federal Controlled Substances Act restricts the use and distribution of prescription medications such as opioids, amphetamines, sleeping aids and other drugs that carry the risk of addiction and overdose.Abortion opponents and conservative Republicans both inside and outside the state have applauded the Louisiana bill. Conversely, the move has been strongly criticized by Democrats, including the vice-president, Kamala Harris, who in a social media post described it as “absolutely unconscionable”.Meanwhile, Louisiana’s Democratic party chairman Randal Gaines released a statement on Wednesday in which he called the bill “yet another example of [House Republicans’] pursuit to take away reproductive freedoms for women in Louisiana.“Thanks to Donald Trump, who proudly claims credit for ripping away women’s freedoms, women in Louisiana live in constant fear of losing even more rights … [this] action is a harrowing preview of how much worse things could get under governor Landry and the extreme GOP leadership,” he added.The US supreme court heard arguments in March on behalf of doctors who oppose abortion and want to restrict access to mifepristone. The justices did not appear ready to limit access to the drug, however.The Louisiana legislation now heads to the desk of conservative Republican governor Jeff Landry. The governor, who was backed by former president Donald Trump during last year’s gubernatorial election, has indicated his support for the measure, remarking in a recent post on X: “You know you’re doing something right when @KamalaHarris criticizes you.”Landry’s office did not respond to an emailed request for comment.A recent survey found that thousands of women in states with abortion bans or restrictions are receiving abortion pills in the mail from states that have laws protecting prescribers. The survey did not specify how many of those cases were in Louisiana.Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban applies both to medical and surgical abortions. The only exceptions to the ban are when there is substantial risk of death or impairment to the pregnant person if they continue the pregnancy or in the case of “medically futile” pregnancies, when the fetus has a fatal abnormality.In 2022, a Louisiana woman carrying an unviable, skull-less fetus was forced to travel 1,400 miles to New York for an abortion after her local hospital denied her the procedure. “Basically … I [would have] to carry my baby to bury my baby,” the woman, Nancy David, said at the time.Currently, 14 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions.According to a study released in March, in the six months following the overturn of Roe v Wade, approximately 26,000 more Americans used abortion pills to induce at-home abortions than would have done had the supreme court not overturned the federal law in 2022.In 2023, medication abortions involving mifepristone, as well as misoprostol, accounted for more than 60% of all abortions across the US healthcare system, marking a 53% increase since 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.The medication abortion counts do not include self-managed medication abortions carried out outside healthcare systems or abortion medication mailed to people in states with total abortion bans. 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      Abortion Pills May Become Controlled Substances in Louisiana

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      A bill that is expected to pass would impose prison time and thousands of dollars in fines on people possessing the pills without a prescription.Louisiana could become the first state to classify abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances, making possession of the pills without a prescription a crime subject to jail time and fines.A bill that would designate the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs — a category of medicines with the potential for abuse or dependence — passed the state’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday by a vote of 63 to 29. Should the Senate follow suit, Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican and a vocal opponent of abortion, is likely to sign the legislation into law.The measure — which would put abortion pills in the same category as Xanax, Ambien and Valium — contradicts the way the federal government classifies mifepristone and misoprostol. The federal Food and Drug Administration does not consider abortion pills to be drugs with the potential for dependence or abuse, and decades of medical studies have found both to be overwhelmingly safe.Under the legislation, possession of mifepristone or misoprostol without a prescription in Louisiana could be punishable with thousands of dollars in fines and up to five years in jail. Pregnant women would be exempt from those penalties; most abortion bans and restrictions do not punish pregnant women because most voters oppose doing so.“These drugs are increasingly being shipped from outside our state and country to women and girls in our state,” Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement on social media. “This legislation does NOT prohibit these drugs from being prescribed and dispensed in Louisiana for legal and legitimate reasons.”Louisiana already bans most abortions, except when women’s lives or health are in danger or fetuses have some fatal conditions. As a result, abortion rights advocates and legal scholars said that in practice, the measure might not prevent many abortions among Louisiana women. Since the state imposed its strict abortion ban after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many patients have traveled to states where abortion is legal or have obtained pills under shield laws from doctors or nurses in other states who prescribe and mail the medications to Louisiana. Such circumstances would not be affected by the new bill, experts say.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Louisiana must use House map with second mostly Black district, US supreme court rules

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      The US supreme court on Wednesday ordered Louisiana to hold congressional elections in 2024 using a House map with a second mostly Black district, despite a lower-court ruling that called the map an illegal racial gerrymander.The order allows the use of a map that has majority Black populations in two of the state’s six congressional districts, potentially boosting Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the closely divided House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.The justices acted on emergency appeals filed by the state’s top Republican elected officials and Black voters who said they needed the high court’s intervention to avoid confusion as the elections approach. About a third of Louisiana is Black.Like much of the south, voting is racially polarized in Alabama so any majority-Black district is likely to favor Democrats. Republicans narrowly control the US House and are fighting for an advantage in every seat.It is the latest development in a long and twisted legal saga over Louisiana’s congressional districts.Louisiana lawmakers were forced to add a second majority-Black district last year after a federal judge said the map they drew violated the Voting Rights Act. The state approved a map, but then non-white voters challenged it in court, saying lawmakers relied too much on race when drawing it. Lower federal courts agreed the map should be struck down, and the state said it should not be required to use the map for this year’s elections.The supreme court’s order on Wednesday halts that argument and means the map with a second majority-Black district will be used for this year’s election. What happens after that is unclear.The supreme court has previously put court decisions handed down near elections on hold, invoking the need to give enough time to voters and elections officials to ensure orderly balloting. “When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote two years ago in a similar case from Alabama. The court has never set a firm deadline for how close is too close.The court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all said they would not have granted the request to intervene. Only Jackson explained her reasoning.“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” she wrote in a brief dissent. “We have often denied stays of redistricting orders issued as close or closer to an election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJackson was objecting to what has come to be known as the Purcell principle – a novel idea adopted by the supreme court that they should not intervene in an election dispute when election day is near. The liberal justices and other critics have accused the court of using the principle to benefit Republicans.Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by federal courts in the past two years in a swirl of lawsuits that included a previous intervention by the supreme court. More

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      US judges reject new Louisiana voting map with second majority-Black district

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      A new congressional map giving Louisiana a second majority-Black House district was rejected on Tuesday by a panel of three federal judges, fueling new uncertainty about district boundaries as the state prepares for fall congressional elections.The 2-1 ruling forbids the use of a map drawn up in January by the legislature after a different federal judge blocked a map from 2022. The earlier map maintained a single Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.“We will of course be seeking supreme court review,” the state attorney general, Liz Murrill, said on social media. “The jurisprudence and litigation involving redistricting has made it impossible to not have federal judges drawing maps. It’s not right and they need to fix it.”The governor, Jeff Landry, and Murrill had backed the new map in a January legislative session after a different federal judge threw out a map with only one mostly Black district.The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by former attorney general Eric Holder, said backers of the new map will probably seek an emergency order from the supreme court to keep the new map in place while appeals are pursued.The US district judges David Joseph and Robert Summerhays, both of whom were nominated to the bench by former president Donald Trump, said the newest map violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because “race was the predominate factor” driving its creation.Judge Carl Stewart dissented, saying the majority gave too little weight to the political motivations involved in drawing the map.“The panel majority is correct in noting that this is a mixed motive case,” Stewart wrote. “But to note this and then to subsequently make a conclusory determination as to racial predominance is hard to comprehend.”The ruling means continued uncertainty over what the November election map will look like. Another federal district judge, Shelly Dick of Baton Rouge, has ruled that the state is probably in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act because it divides Black voters not included in majority-Black district 2 among five other congressional districts.But Tuesday’s ruling from the divided federal panel noted that “outside of south-east Louisiana, the state’s Black population is dispersed”. The majority criticized the new mostly Black district, which stretched across the state from Shreveport in the north-west into south-east Louisiana, linking black populations from the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge metro areas.The panel set a 6 May status conference. Meanwhile, the case before Dick in Baton Rouge is still alive, and state election officials say they need to know the district boundaries by 15 May. The sign-up period for the fall elections in Louisiana is in mid-July.The decision gives new hope to Representative Garret Graves, a white Republican incumbent whose district was seriously altered by the new map. And it raises questions for state senator Cleo Fields, a Democrat and former Congress member who had declared he would run in the new district.Representative Troy Carter, the only Democrat and only Black member of the state’s current congressional delegation, criticized the ruling.“This is just plain WRONG,” Carter posted on the social platform X on Tuesday evening. More

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      Federal Judges Block Newly Drawn Louisiana Congressional Map

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      A panel of federal judges blocked Louisiana on Tuesday from using a newly drawn congressional map that had been designed to form a second district with a majority of Black voters, creating uncertainty just months before an election that could play a critical role in determining the balance of power in the House of Representatives.The new districts had been outlined in January during a special session of the State Legislature. Lawmakers had been ordered to sketch out the new boundaries after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the previous map had very likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Black residents.But in a 2-to-1 decision released on Tuesday, a separate panel of federal judges sided with challengers who argued that the new map was an “impermissible racial gerrymander” that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution.The challenge had been brought by a group of residents scattered across the newly formed district who described themselves as “non-African American” voters. They argued that lawmakers had moved to “segregate voters based entirely on their races” and that to achieve that, they had stitched together “communities in far-flung regions of Louisiana.”Critics assailed the ruling on Tuesday, saying that it threatened vital protections for voters of color. “The court’s ruling today unnecessarily puts Louisianians’ right to vote in a very precarious position,” Eric H. Holder Jr., the former U.S. attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement.The court will hold a hearing on May 6 to discuss which boundaries will be used in the coming election.“We will of course be seeking Supreme Court review,” Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, wrote on social media. “I’ve said all along the Supreme Court needs to clear this up.” More

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      Louisiana Will Get a New City After a Yearslong Court Battle

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      The State Supreme Court cleared the way for a part of Baton Rouge to become the city of St. George. Critics say the white, wealthier enclave separating from the capital could have devastating consequences.The original plan was to start a school district. That didn’t work. So a group of residents in a sprawling unincorporated suburb of Baton Rouge, La., expanded their idea: Create a city of their own, called St. George.In 2015, they collected signatures to bring their proposal up for a vote, but didn’t get enough. In 2019, they tried again. This time, they made it to a ballot and won the election, only to be stalled by a lengthy court battle.But the Louisiana Supreme Court cleared the way on Friday for the formation of St. George, a city of nearly 100,000 people that joins the ranks of the state’s largest cities, falling between Lafayette and Lake Charles in population. It is the first city to be incorporated in Louisiana in nearly two decades.A majority of justices found that lower courts had erred in blocking the city’s creation over concerns of its financial viability.“This is the culmination of citizens exercising their constitutional rights,” Andrew Murrell, a leader of the effort to create the city, said in a statement, adding, “Now we begin the process of delivering on our promises of a better city.”The city will consist of an area of East Baton Rouge Parish, which is run by a blended government that oversees both Baton Rouge and the broader parish. It also carves out a largely white and more affluent section of the parish, southeast of Baton Rouge.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Louisiana coroner accused of child abuse cuts sexual assault exam program

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      Having been elected against no opposition despite prior charges of child molestation, the chief medical examiner of a south-east Louisiana community with more than a quarter-million residents took office Monday, poised to deliver on a pledge to eliminate an agency program that has helped collect key evidence in cases of sexual assault.Dr Christopher Tape, 53, is expected to ultimately face an effort from voters to subject him to a recall election and force him from office, the top local government official in St Tammany parish has told the outlet, which exposed the new coroner’s criminal history.But that drive to remove Tape must clear a relatively high procedural threshold now that he’s in place at the parish – or county, in Louisiana parlance – coroner’s office.Tape was indicted in New Mexico in 2002 on charges that he sexually assaulted his then girlfriend’s daughter, who was seven at the time, as local TV station WWL Louisiana first reported in February. A court in that state later found prosecutors took too long between arresting and indicting Tape – who was a medical school student at the time – and tossed the charges, saying his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been unduly compromised.Eventually, Tape landed work at the St Tammany coroner’s office – which primarily handles investigations of deaths in the parish with a population of about 270,000 but also offers a range of other services, including mental health commitments and sexual assault nurse examinations.Tape in August signed up to run to take over the $11m dollar office, and the incumbent – Dr Charles Preston – declined to seek re-election. No one else came forward as a candidate, meaning Tape was automatically elected to succeed Preston.But the transition from Preston to Tape in an office that is roughly 50 miles (80 km) north of New Orleans has been anything but smooth.First, in October, Preston fired Tape, accusing the latter man of improperly disclosing medical test results and violating their office’s confidentiality policies, as the local news site Nola.com reported.Then, on 11 February, WWL Louisiana investigative reporter David Hammer not only revealed that a technicality had spared Tape from being tried on six charges of child sexual assault in New Mexico, WWL also uncovered how Tape in 2022 had struck an out-of-court settlement with a 26-year-old employee at his private forensic pathology practice who alleged that he made unwanted sexual advances toward her.All of St Tammany’s top elected officials subsequently demanded that Tape resign without beginning his four-year term, which began at midnight Monday. But he made it clear he had no intention of satisfying those demands.In fact, four days before his term kicked off, Tape announced that – after he took over – the coroner’s office would no longer provide its sexual assault nurse examiner (Sane) program. He said local hospitals instead would be responsible for the service, which involved collecting evidence that was vital for the prosecution of sexual assault crimes, as Nola.com reported.Tape’s policy shift ignited a fresh outcry. The office’s Sane program worked with sexual assault survivors in a region that included four parishes other than St Tammany. Louisiana state lawmakers told Nola.com that the hospitals affected by Tape’s change were “not prepared to do this right off the bat”, especially ones in certain rural parts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“To throw this in their lap without any real notice – it’s insane,” one of those lawmakers, state senator Patrick McMath, said to Nola.com.St Tammany parish president Mike Cooper has told WWL it is widely expected that voters will quickly try to recall Tape. Though Cooper anticipated most – if not all – of St Tammany’s elected officials would support the recall effort, getting such a measure on a ballot would legally require the certified signature of 37,000 locally registered voters, or 20% of the parish’s electorate.Gathering that many valid signatures, however, is somewhat of “a heavy lift”, state House member Jay Galle separately told WWL. And Galle said he would consult his fellow state legislators to explore whether there was some kind of way through the lawmaking process “to provide some way to find a different coroner for St Tammany parish”.Tape nonetheless reported to work as Sunday turned into Monday. And after being sworn in, at a news conference he said he would not step down. He defended his decision to discontinue the Sane program, saying he was protecting local taxpayers from financing examinations for residents of other parishes.Furthermore, he denied being an abuser.“I don’t know what people want me to do,” Tape said. “It’s innocent until proven guilty. Do you not believe in that?” More

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      Louisiana Democrat wins sheriff’s race do-over after first victory was disputed

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      Months after his disputed one-vote victory in a Louisiana sheriff’s race was tossed by a court, a Democrat was decisively elected over his Republican rival on his second try Saturday.Henry Whitehorn got 53% of the vote in Saturday’s election in north-west Louisiana’s Caddo parish. He’ll be the first Black sheriff in the parish – which is the word Louisiana uses for county – after defeating John Nickelson, who is white.Returns from the Louisiana secretary of state’s office show Whitehorn defeated Nickelson by more than 4,000 votes this time.Turnout was considerably higher in the second race. State figures show 65,239 people voted in Saturday’s sheriff’s race – up from 43,247 in November.A former head of the Louisiana state police and ex-Shreveport police chief, Whitehorn won by a single vote in November. But courts ordered a new election after finding evidence that two people illegally voted twice and four others voted despite being ineligible.Whitehorn had come out of retirement to run for sheriff after longtime Sheriff Steve Prator announced his retirement.“I’m troubled by the violent crime that’s plaguing our community. I had retired and I could have just sat on the sidelines, if I chose to, and watched. But I’ve been called to serve. I couldn’t just sit and watch this community suffer,” Whitehorn told the Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate.Nickelson conceded Saturday night as Whitehorn’s victory became apparent. “I wish him every success because his success will be Caddo parish’s success,” Nickelson said.Whitehorn will be sworn in on 1 July, replacing interim sheriff Jay Long who took over from Prator on 1 March.Saturday’s victory for Whitehorn came while voters in Louisiana also voted in the state’s presidential preference primary.Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump and Joe Biden won the Republican and Democratic primaries, respectively, in dominant fashion. The former president captured 90% of the vote, and the Democratic incumbent took 86%, Associated Press results show. More