Last week the Louisiana Senate passed a bill designating the two drugs commonly used to terminate an early-stage pregnancy, misoprostol and mifepristone, as controlled substances, criminalizing the drugs without a prescription.
Having easily cleared the House and Senate, the bill, which Vice-President Kamala Harris described as “absolutely unconscionable,” is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry.
While pro-death Democrats are lamenting the legislation, which was initially created to stop men from secretly drugging their pregnant wives and girlfriends to induce an abortion, it is being lauded in equal measure by the Pro-life movement, flagging it as a significant victory for “life.”
It is not, and we agree with Kamala Harris. We view this as a particularly nasty piece of legislation that is unconscionable, though not for the same reason she does.
We abhor this bill because it is a blunted, impotent, and powerless piece of legislation that is not worth the paper it’s written on. The only thing worse than the bill is how badly pro-life advocates are spinning it as something we should celebrate rather than an object of disdain and scorn.
The bill purports to stop the use of abortion pills in a “reckless manner” while still fully allowing them to be used in a “non-reckless” manner.” The bill is clear. “It shall not be a violation of this subsection for a pregnant woman to possess mifepristone or misoprostol for her own consumption.”
And in the case of its designed, weak intent, it only criminalizes the pill-drugging deaths of babies more than three months old, clearly sending the message that pre-born victims under three months are sub-human and unworthy of equal protection under the law.
In Louisiana, any woman can freely order and take abortion pills to kill her baby any time she wants, without punishment, without consequences, and without fear of legal reprisal.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Louisiana has a supermajority of professing pro-lifers in both the House and the Senate. They have all the tools, all the power, but none of the will. Instead of passing decisive legislation in the state that bans the sale and distribution of abortion drugs- baby poison in pill form- they give the citizenry this. It is a mockery. It is grotesque.
Sam Riley, the Media Director for the abortion abolitionist group Abolitionists Rising has echoed our concern about the effectiveness of the bill, telling us in a statement:
Pro-lifers are willing to pursue any legislation except the abolition of abortion. SB 276 is another regulatory measure in a long line of toothless bills that the pro-life movement has pursued. Nothing in it will stop the flow of abortion pills to Louisiana from out of the country or from states that have shield laws.
The mother, the primary actor in abortion, is exempt from all punishment, which renders the bill useless. This brazen partiality will result in the continued murder of the innocent preborn. It is equally effective as attempting to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun.
Worse than that, pro-life activists are watching their houses burn down while actively keeping abolitionists away from the fire trucks and water bombers. Despite being able to stop the mass murder of children, the leaders threw a few crumbs at the pro-life movement who quickly slurped them up without ever making the demand for more.
Think of an award-winning chef with a fully stocked kitchen, the best ingredients, and a roomful of starving patrons predisposed to liking his cooking. Rather than create a meal that will satiate and satisfy, he makes a rancid soup filled with rotting vegetables and seasoned with his own urine.
The politicians in Louisiana have the power and the numbers to enact real change and serve up seven courses of baby-saving, but instead, the legislators relieve their bladders on the corpses of children and the pro-life activists lick their plates and ask for more.
