Louisiana governor signs bill making two abortion drugs controlled dangerous substances

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Louisiana governor signs bill making two abortion drugs controlled dangerous substances

2024-05-25 06:51 Last Updated At：07:00

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — First-of-its-kind legislation that classifies two abortion-inducing drugs as controlled and dangerous substances was signed into law Friday by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

The Republican governor announced his signing of the bill in Baton Rouge a day after it gained final legislative passage in the state Senate.

The measure affects the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used in medication abortions, the most common method of abortion in the U.S..

Opponents of the bill included many physicians who said the drugs have other critical reproductive health care uses, and that changing the classification could make it harder to prescribe the medications.

Supporters of the bill said it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions, though they cited only one example of that happening, in the state of Texas.

The bill passed as abortion opponents await a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on an effort to restrict access to mifepristone.

The new law will take effect on Oct. 1.

The bill began as a measure to create the crime of “coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud.” An amendment adding the abortion drugs to the Schedule IV classification of Louisiana's Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law was pushed by Sen. Thomas Pressly, a Republican from Shreveport and the main sponsor of the bill.

“Requiring an abortion inducing drug to be obtained with a prescription and criminalizing the use of an abortion drug on an unsuspecting mother is nothing short of common-sense," Landry said in a statement.

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. Other Schedule IV drugs include the opioid tramadol and a group of depressants known as benzodiazepines.

Knowingly possessing the drugs without a valid prescription would carry a punishment including hefty fines and jail time. Language in the bill appears to carve out protections for pregnant women who obtain the drug without a prescription for their own consumption.

The classification would require doctors to have a specific license to prescribe the drugs, and the drugs would have to be stored in certain facilities that in some cases could end up being located far from rural clinics.

In addition to inducing abortions, mifepristone and misoprostol have other common uses, such as treating miscarriages, inducing labor and stopping hemorrhaging.

More than 200 doctors in the state signed a letter to lawmakers warning that the measure 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.

Pressly said he pushed the legislation because of what happened to his sister Catherine Herring, of Texas. In 2022, Herring’s husband slipped her seven misoprostol pills in an effort to induce an abortion without her knowledge or consent.

Chinese premier agrees with Australia to 'properly manage' differences

2024-06-17 16:46 Last Updated At：16:50

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang said he agreed with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday to properly manage their nations' differences as they emerge from a hostile era in which minister-to-minister contacts were banned and trade barriers cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.

Li, Albanese and senior ministers of both administrations met at Parliament House to discuss thorny issues, including lingering trade barriers, conflict between their militaries in international waters and China’s desire to invest in critical minerals.

Li, China’s most senior leader after President Xi Jinping, arrived in the South Australian state capital of Adelaide on Saturday and the national capital of Canberra late Sunday in the first visit to the country by a Chinese premier in seven years.

Li told reporters after Monday's meeting that the bilateral relationship was “on the right track of steady improvement and development.”

“We ... had a candid exchange of views on some differences and disagreements and agreed to properly manage them in a manner befitting our comprehensive strategic partnership,” Li said through an interpreter.

Albanese, who in November last year became the first Australian prime minister to visit China since 2016, described the discussions as “constructive.”

“Australia advocates that we should all work together to promote a regional balance where no country dominates and no country is dominated,” Albanese said.

“I’ve made it clear as nations with different histories, political systems and values, we will cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest,” the Australian leader added.

Their relations have improved markedly since Albanese’s center-left Labor Party was elected in 2022 following nine years of conservative government in Australia.

Most of the official and unofficial trade barriers Beijing introduced in 2020 on coal, cotton, wine, barley and wood have been lifted since Albanese was elected.

Beijing had banned minister-to-minister contacts as it froze out the previous Australian government diplomatically.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said before the meeting that he would raise the issue of China's ban on Australian rock lobsters and exports from two beef processing plants.

“The mere fact that we have the first visit by a Chinese premier, the second-most powerful person in China, ... since 2017 is an enormous opportunity to continue that dialogue, to continue stabilizing our relationship and address some of the outstanding issues,” Watt said.

Li was served lobster at a business lunch with winemakers on Sunday and wagyu beef at a state lunch Monday, news media reported.

Li planned to underscore China’s interest in buying a bigger stake in Australia’s critical minerals sector, which is essential to the global transition to renewable energy sources, by visiting a Chinese-controlled lithium processing plant in Western Australia state Tuesday.

Li visited New Zealand before Australia and is scheduled to stop in Malaysia late Tuesday before returning to China.

Australia shares U.S. concerns over China’s global dominance in critical minerals and control over supply chains in the renewable energy sector.

Citing Australia’s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently ordered five Chinese-linked companies to divest their shares in the rare earth mining company Northern Minerals.

Watt said Chinese investment was not banned from the sector, but must meet national security criteria.

Albanese later told Li at a state lunch, "We won't always agree and the points on which we disagree won’t simply disappear if we leave them in silence.”

That appeared to be in response to a statement by Li, released by the Chinese Embassy in Canberra on Sunday, that he recommended “shelving differences” between the two countries in the interests of bolstering relations.

Albanese confirmed he had raised with Li recent clashes between the two countries’ militaries in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea that Australia argues endangered Australian personnel.

Chinese and Australian officials had agreed at the meeting to discuss improving military-to-military communications to avoid unintended incidents, Albanese said.

Relations tumbled over Australian legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics, the exclusion of Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the national 5G network due to security concerns, and Australia’s call for an independent investigation into the causes of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benjamin Herscovitch, a China expert at Australian National University, said he did not expect China to get any firm commitments from Australia during Li’s visit.

The two countries signed several agreements on Monday to cooperate on trade, education, climate change, culture and intellectual property.

Beijing would like to remove Australian opposition to China joining a trade bloc known as the CPTPP, more investment in Australian critical minerals and ambitious new cooperative agreements on science and technology, Herscovitch said.

But Australia had already made a concession to China in rebuilding relations through inaction by not imposing sanctions on Chinese entities that help Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, he said.

“Australia is essentially giving China a free pass on that issue,” Herscovitch said, while Australian allies, including the United States, Britain and the European Union were imposing sanctions.

Hundreds of pro-China demonstrators, human rights activists and democracy advocates have lined the routes of Li’s cavalcades in Adelaide and Canberra.