• A Mississippi bill would make prescribing abortion-inducing medication illegal, with violators facing up to 10 years in prison.
• The legislation was added as an amendment to a bill originally focused on trafficking illegal drugs.

A House bill is one step away from making it illegal for doctors to prescribe abortion-inducing medication to Mississippians. People who violate the provision could face up to 10 years in prison.

The bill originally focused on the trafficking of illegal drugs such as marijuana and scheduled controlled substances. It added a single phrase to existing Mississippi law, clarifying the number of dosage units of a scheduled drug that someone needs to transport in order to charge them with aggravated trafficking.

Rep. Celeste Hurst, R-Sandhill, seized the opportunity to add abortion-inducing drugs to the bill when it was heard on the House floor in early February. Her amendment would allow the prosecution of people who knowingly dispense, sell or prescribe the medications.

She clarified on the floor that her intention is to require an in-person visit with a patient before a doctor can issue the medication, which is most frequently prescribed when someone is going through a miscarriage. Neither the text of her amendment nor the Senate version that passed March 11 mention a doctor’s visit.

The bill cleared the hurdle of a full House vote on Feb. 11 easily, passing with support from nearly two-thirds of the chamber. It crossed the aisle to the Senate, where first a committee, then the full chamber, also approved the bill’s new language.

Unlike with all of the other drugs mentioned, the bill doesn’t specify the amount of abortion-inducing medication that would warrant prosecution, nor does it clarify how many units would classify the crime as a felony.

Additionally, the bill allows the Attorney General to sue a person who is accused of violating the law and recover a financial penalty. Being acquitted of the criminal charge, the bill states, is not a defense in a civil case, so someone who is determined to be innocent can still face civil litigation.

The bill joins Mississippi’s existing abortion laws, which ban the practice in nearly every circumstance, barring a proven case of rape or a situation where an abortion is needed to save someone’s life. Medical providers can also face a minimum of one year and maximum of 10 years in prison for performing an illegal abortion.

Neither the House nor the Senate bill would punish people who receive or use the abortion-inducing medication illegally. This policy is meant to protect women in vulnerable situations, said Grace Bailey, a domestic violence counselor, but the impact on their wellbeing is the same as if they could be prosecuted for abortions.

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