Texas Could Become the Second State in America To Classify Abortion Drugs as Controlled Substances

Texas could follow in the steps of Louisiana in taking aim at drugs used in medication abortions by classifying them as “controlled dangerous substances.”A Republican Texas state representative, Pat Curry, filed a proposal to reclassify abortion-inducing drugs as Schedule IV controlled substances. Mr. Curry told the Texas Tribune the goal of his legislation is to make it harder for women to order mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used for medication abortions, the most common method of abortion in America.He said there is a “wide misuse” of the drugs as a way to avoid the state’s near-total ban on abortion procedures. Louisiana’s first-in-the-nation law classifying mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances” went into effect in October. The decision on how to “schedule” a drug is usually made by the federal government. The NIH notes those decisions are based on a substance’s “medical efficacy, safety, potential for abuse and diversion.” However, states can classify a drug as a controlled substance independently of the federal government, though it is rare that they do so.Classifying the drugs as controlled substances would increase restrictions on how doctors can dispense them. Prescriptions for controlled substances have to be reported to Texas’s Prescription Monitoring Program, which doctors have to check before prescribing controlled substances. And there would be increased penalties for having the drugs without a prescription. Proponents of abortion medications say they can be used to treat various health conditions, such as post-delivery bleeding. However, conservative states and advocates for limiting abortion have turned their attention to trying to restrict abortion drugs. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more American women turned to abortion-inducing medications as conservative states banned abortion procedures. A report from a research and policy organization focused on protecting abortion access, the Guttmacher Institute, found that medication abortions made up 63 percent of all abortions in America in 2023, a 10 percent increase from 2020. Amid the rising popularity of abortion-inducing pills, Mr. Curry told the Texas Tribune, “We don’t need or want all kinds of regulations.”“Especially as Republicans, regulations should not be high on our list, but in this case, it’s a necessary evil given the situation,” he said. He also raised concerns about the accessibility of the drugs and the verification process for online prescribers.“You can lie about your age, you can lie about your name, you can lie about your address, there’s no verification whatsoever,” Mr. Curry said. “And it gets shipped to a 15-year-old girl, a 13-year-old girl.”While Mr. Curry addressed online prescribers specifically, Texas law makes it illegal to send abortion-inducing medication through the mail. However, so-called “shield” laws in states such as New York offer legal protections to doctors who are willing to prescribe and send those drugs to women in Texas. Besides limitations at the state level, conservatives are trying to implement restrictions on mifepristone at the federal level. In October, the attorneys general of Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas filed a lawsuit against the FDA seeking to force the agency to implement new restrictions that would prohibit anyone under 18 from being prescribed mifepristone. The lawsuit would also seek to limit the ability of doctors to prescribe and mail abortion-inducing drugs to women in states that have abortion restrictions. In June, the Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit as it found the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.

Texas Could Become the Second State in America To Classify Abortion Drugs as Controlled Substances

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