The Racist War On Drugs Has Come For Abortion Care

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

You would be hard-pressed to find an American who lived through the 1970s and doesn’t remember the launch of President Nixon’s War on Drugs, a thinly veiled crusade against his political opponents and Black Americans. Presented as the cornerstone of Nixon’s purported public safety strategy, it’s now commonly acknowledged to have been nothing short of a social, economic and human rights disaster — with repercussions Americans are still experiencing today. But what does it have to do with abortion rights?

Louisiana’s governor recently signed into law a bill criminalizing the most common form of abortion care in America: medication abortion. This extreme new law categorizes mifepristone and misoprostol — the two medicines most commonly prescribed to induce abortions — as Schedule IV ‘dangerous and controlled substances,’ alongside Xanax and Valium. While the bill contains an exception for pregnant people found in possession of the medications, anyone else without a prescription can be charged with a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. 

This near-total abortion ban pushed through by far-right local politicians will only exacerbate Louisiana’s dire maternal mortality crisis, which has seen low-income Black Lousianians suffer a disproportionately high rate of preventable deaths. In effect, this ban has ushered the War on Drugs into the realm of abortion care, sentencing pregnant people—particularly Black pregnant people—to profound, preventable harm.

When Nixon first rolled out his infamous anti-drug campaign in 1971, he used it not as an effort to curb drug use, but for political purposes: associating leftists and Black communities with drug use and then criminalizing and marginalizing them in the public mind. He was horrifically successful at achieving these objectives, but the campaign’s reach didn’t stop there. 

Empowered by Nixon, federal and state governments created drug categorization schedules deeming certain drugs highly dangerous, and then attached sometimes egregiously long prison sentences to their illegal use and distribution. Prosecutors possess total discretion when it comes to who they charge with what crime and how aggressively a defendant should be punished. And some prosecutors across the U.S.  took that power and ran with it. Between 1980 and 2008, state prison populations for drug offenses increased by a whopping 1,216%. Black people have borne the brunt of this incarceration explosion: Black people are incarcerated for drug offenses at nearly six times the rate of white people, despite similar rates of drug use.  

The War on Drugs taught us that once a certain behavior is criminalized and incarceration is accepted as the solution, it’s extremely difficult to change course—no matter how devastating the consequences. Prosecutors empowered to treat certain behaviors as criminal don’t surrender that power lightly, and state legislatures have been slow to reform state drug laws.

Consider marijuana. Despite nearly 70% of U.S. adults supporting the legalization of marijuana, which has recognized medicinal uses, it’s only been legalized for recreational use in 24 states — and often via ballot measures initiated by voters, not legislative reforms. Although the federal government recently moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, it will still be highly regulated and remain illegal for recreational use. According to the most recently available FBI data, police made over a quarter of a million arrests for marijuana in 2022. 

Now, let’s bring it back to Louisiana. The far-reaching consequences of outlawing abortion care in this state have already been well-documented. The mass confusion, chaos and legitimate fear of legal sanctions have led medical providers to either delay abortion care to the point where a patient’s life is at risk, or to deny care altogether. Categorizing safe and effective medication as a Schedule IV controlled substance will have chilling consequences for pregnant patients — including those with desired pregnancies.

First, this bill will create complex logistical and financial barriers to both prescribing and obtaining medication abortion for lawful uses like miscarriage management. Providers are already taking drastic measures, like choosing to perform C-sections to avoid medication abortions. Initial prenatal care is being delayed, leaving pregnant patients without critical information about their health in a state with some of the highest maternal mortality and morbidity rates in the nation.  

Under this new ban, like with marijuana, police officers and prosecutors hold full discretion regarding who is arrested, charged, fined or even incarcerated for possessing abortion medication. For many, even an arrest can have devastating consequences. These two medications will now carry the stigma of being “controlled and dangerous substances,” and access to them will undoubtedly shrink due to the increased regulatory requirements. 

Louisiana’s policymakers have proven their willingness to exploit the criminal legal system to enforce social, moral and racially biased visions of society. The state has long been near the top of the world in incarceration rates, imprisoning Black residents at more than three times the rate of their white peers. Earlier this year, Louisiana’s leaders rolled back modest criminal legal system reforms, signaling their appetite for an even more punitive approach. Now, they’re poised to adopt a carceral strategy as part of far-right Republicans’ and the religious rights’ campaign to eliminate all abortion care, with pregnant people bearing the risk. 

Many more Louisianans will be caught up in a vicious cycle of incarceration and criminal punishment as a result, unless state leaders come to their senses and repeal this draconian measure that has brought the War on Drugs to reproductive care.