BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (LifeSiteNews) – The Louisiana Legislature gave final approval to legislation to open anyone who helps facilitate a chemical abortion to civil suits, cracking down further on the abortion lobby’s efforts to sustain abortion-on-demand in pro-life states.
The Justice for Victims of Abortion Drug Dealers Act enables a preborn baby’s mother, father, and grandparents, as well as the mother’s legal guardian, to sue anyone who “performs, causes, or substantially facilitates an abortion” for damages, “regardless of whether the abortion resulted in the death of the unborn child.”
Damages would begin at $100,000 “for the provision of abortion-inducing drugs when it is reasonably foreseeable that the abortion-inducing drugs will be used by or provided to a pregnant woman for the purpose of inducing an abortion,” a heavy sum expected to have a severe deterrent effect.
It passed the state House 59-25 last month, the state Senate 28-9 on Monday, and the final amended version was approved 77-18 by the House on Tuesday. It now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Gov. Jeff Landry for his signature to become law.
Louisiana bans abortion throughout pregnancy except when deemed “necessary” to prevent the death of the mother “due to a physical condition,” to avoid “serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ of a pregnant woman,” or if two doctors agree that an unborn baby would not survive after birth. In such cases, a physician must “make reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with reasonable medical practice,” per its 2006 trigger law.
Last year, Louisiana enacted the Catherine and Josephine Herring Act, which puts abortion drug mifepristone and misoprostol on the state’s list of Schedule IV drugs under its Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances law, classifying them as having the potential for abuse or dependence. It makes possession without a prescription a criminal offense subject to significant fines and up to 10 years in prison. Since then, Louisiana officials have attempted to extradite a New York abortionist for mailing abortion pills into the state.
The legislature has also passed the Stop Coerced Abortion Act, which expands the definition of coercion under existing law to criminalize more tactics by which abusers pressure, force, or intimidate women into aborting their children. It too awaits Landry’s approval.
