The Biden campaign sought to link former President Donald Trump to a recently passed Louisiana bill that criminalizes two medications used to induce abortions.
On Tuesday, Louisiana’s House passed a bill, 64-29, that added two abortion medications to its list of controlled dangerous substances. People caught without prescriptions for mifepristone and misoprostol could be fined or jailed for up to five years, or a combination of both.
It also criminalizes a person giving a pregnant woman abortion pills without consent, however, a pregnant woman who obtains the medications “for her own consumption” would not face criminal charges.
The bill, SB 276, is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry (R) and could become a template for other states to emulate.
But it has alarmed medical experts, abortion advocates, and Democrats who cautioned against comparing mifepristone and misoprostol with opioids, narcotics, and other addictive substances.
“We only have to look around to see the chaos and the cruelty playing out all across the country that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe v. Wade and unleashing really extreme abortion bans,” former New Orleans Mayor and Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu told reporters during a press call Thursday morning. “And now you can see draconian legislation that is actually threatening the lives and the health of women from Florida to Ohio to Idaho to a number of states and now into Louisiana.”
Ellie Schilling, an attorney in Louisiana who specializes in reproductive health, warned that SB 276 could create dire experiences for women if it becomes law.
“This bill would make it incredibly difficult to obtain and use these drugs for those medically necessary purposes,” Schilling said. “In fact, it could create deadly delays in emergency situations, such as women bleeding out for miscarriages or postpartum hemorrhaging.”
Louisiana bans most abortions except for medically necessary termination of a pregnancy but reproductive professionals claim that the mifepristone and misoprostol are used for other instances apart from abortion.
“What SB 276 does is it classifies mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances, which is why wildly inappropriate in terms of what these drugs actually do and are used for,” Schilling added. “But they would then be subject to monitoring and tracking the same as opioids are for example. So the state has a database of who is prescribing and who is receiving controlled dangerous substances and these drugs would then be added to that.”
The Biden campaign has repeatedly featured the testimonials of women who experienced medical complications from their pregnancies in states that heavily restrict abortion to attack Trump and the GOP.
During Thursday’s press call, Baton Rouge resident Kaitlyn Joshua shared her experience of being turned away from two emergency rooms as she dealt with a miscarriage.
“Ultimately, it took me weeks to pass my pregnancy at home and I was absolutely terrified,” Joshua explained. “This experience has made me see firsthand how black women die without proper maternal healthcare.”
Abortion has proven to be a powerful electoral tool, helping Democrats stave off serious electoral defeats since Roe was overturned in June 2022.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have campaigned in part as the presidential team that will protect abortion access in contrast to Trump who has taken credit for the fall of Roe by nominating the three justices that conservatively tilted the high court.
The Biden campaign repeatedly referenced a comment from Trump during an interview with Time Magazine last month where he appeared to suggest states could monitor women’s pregnancies and recent comments Trump made appearing to limit contraception.
By repeatedly hammering Trump on abortion access, Democrats aim to overcome other Biden weaknesses, such as inflation and multiple global conflicts ahead of the November election.
“If Trump returns to the White House, he’s going to make things even worse. He has made that crystal clear,” said Landrieu. “Just yesterday, Donald Trump said that he would support states who choose to restrict contraception. He’s kind of walked that back now.”
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Trump claimed he would share his policy on contraception during a Pittsburgh television interview. But after the Biden campaign slammed Trump over the remarks he took to social media to clarify his stance.
“I DO NOT SUPPORT A BAN ON BIRTH CONTROL, AND NEITHER WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!” Trump declared.