16 Comments

I’ve taken Misoprostol for years to buffer the potentially corrosive effects in my stomach of a medication I take for rheumatoid arthritis. If miso were to lose FDA approval in a repuglican administration, I’d have to also stop taking the other medication, even though it works and I tolerate it well. That scares the crap out of me. It also pisses me off. I’m old, but I’ll be working hard to keep those fckers from retaking the WH.

Expand full comment

There needs to be some radical changes and huge pushback on these draconian laws. I live in Texas. We need to vote blue up and down the ballot for several election cycles to get rid of the GOP “ the party of darkness “

Expand full comment

I find it unacceptable that they criminalize a pregnant drug addict for using drugs because their pregnant rather than get the person into treatment to look at the root cause of the drug use. The drug users issues are dismissed. They are focusing on the wrong issue as usual

Expand full comment

I agree, but keep in mmind that for many on thr political right addiction isn't an illness- it's a personal failure.

Expand full comment

I agree and understand. I was married to an addict for 20 yrs. Addiction is very misunderstood, especially when you feel that the person should be shamed by not being able to stand on their own two feet. It is an illness and often a byproduct of trauma

Expand full comment

It’s very telling that they only criminalize the pregnant drug addict for child endangerment but not the male who put the sperm inside her. After all, he had to know she was a user so his act would seem to be just as deliberate and yet he isn’t prosecuted. Seems they are targeting only women. Isn’t that discrimination? I believe that is illegal, right? Very selective.

Expand full comment

The federal Centers for Disease Control has a contraception app for health care providers to use when discussing contraception with patients. It includes more than 60 characteristics or medical conditions for consideration as well as many clinical situations. The app can be downloaded from the Apple App Stoire or Google Play. See https://www.cdc.gov/contraception/hcp/contraceptive-guidance/app.html.

On August 6, 2024, the CDC updated the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use, 2024, specifying contraceptive methods suitable for people based on characteristics or medical conditions (e.g., kidney diseaes, postabortion, lupus, sickle cell disease, etc: https://www.cdc.gov/contraception/hcp/usmec/. The full study is available at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/rr/rr7304a.1.htm.

Jesa Marie Calaor's "27 IUD Experiences that Prove We Need Better Birth Control Now," ALlur (Aug. 12, 2024), https://www.allure.com/story/iud-side-effects-benefits-experiences points out that, although IUDs are hioghly effective in preventing pregnancy, IUD users' experiences with insertion and use of an IUD vary greatly. A Cornell University study found that 78% of survey respondents experienced moderate to severe plain when an IUD is inserted. Not only the type of IUD but the health caer provider's skill and experience affect how painful the insertion is.

Expand full comment

78%!!! Holy moly! Talk about depraved indifference to women’s pain. I had no idea it was that common. WTH?

Expand full comment

Less than 5% of providers offer any form of pain management regardless of patient feedback, requests, etc. A man is given Valium the night before a vasectomy *for anxiety* and women are told to "take ibuprofen" for everything from IUD insertion to coloscopy, cervical biopsy, and LEEP ablation.

(It has been shown that 600 mgs of ibuprofen is slightly less effective for pain management as a kick in the pants for any of these procedures.)

Expand full comment

Julie and Leah: you're right, it's a question of the priorities of the medical system. It has a lot to do with who can complain. Pain relief for babies (who can't tell you you're a rotten doctor) is also only an emerging science. Conventional medical wisdom has often conveniently assumed that Black people have lower sensitivity to pain than white people (or that Black patients are "drug seekers" who fabricate or exaggerate pain).

It used to be a med school saying that "no uterus is good enough to leave in and no testicle is bad enough to take out" but to be fair, nowadays it's getting hard for an older man to hang on to his OEM prostate. If the assumption is that women are hysterical and neurotic, there won't be much interest in relieving pain that the health care provider doesn't really believe exists anyway.

Expand full comment

God help anyone in that godforsaken armpit of a state with the bad luck to have rheumatoid arthritis.

Expand full comment

The whole argument for Controlled Substances is that certain drugs are a threat to people who consume them. Since abortifacients do not harm the women who consume them, it will be necessary to legally define her pregnancy as person deserving protection under the law. How does Louisiana make this argument? Is a woman's pregnancy a person under Louisiana law? But maybe they have already done that by making abortion illegal. Sounds either confused or redundant.

Expand full comment

Can a state criminalize the use of a drug that has FDA approval? (Forgive the naïveté of this question…) or will this bill be immediately challenged in federal court?

Expand full comment
author

Litigation has already been filed to invalidate statutes like these on the grounds that they are preempted by the doctrine that state laws that conflict with, or undermine the purposes of FDA actions with respect to approved drugs are preempted under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, so that is good! That being said, Project 2025 is very clear that they will disband the FDA and they have mentioned bringing back the Comstock Act, which would legitimize these horrifying state rules the minute an executive order is signed; kinda like the trigger bans that immediately became law post-Dobbs.

Expand full comment
founding

Came here to ask the same thing. I guess with this theocratic Supreme Court, we know the answer…

Expand full comment