BATON ROUGE, La. – Louisiana’s new law classifying two commonly used abortion drugs as “controlled dangerous substances” was challenged in a lawsuit filed Thursday in state court by a doctor, a pharmacist and others who say the law leads to unnecessary, dangerous delays in treatment for medical emergencies.

Although Louisiana has a near-total ban on abortion, including the use of medication, a reclassification of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, which have other critical uses in reproductive health care, went into effect earlier this month. Proponents of the law said greater oversight and control over drugs was needed to prevent forced abortions. They used the Texas case of a pregnant woman as an example. seven misoprostol pills by her husband without her knowledge. The baby survived.

Doctors critical of the law said it could harm patients facing emergency complications such as postpartum hemorrhage by requiring medical staff to take extra steps to handle medications and stricter storage requirements.

“Even brief delays in accessing misoprostol can be life-threatening for postpartum hemorrhage patients,” the lawsuit states. The law violates the Louisiana Constitution in several ways, including prohibiting discrimination based on a person’s physical condition.

Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill said Thursday afternoon that she had not seen the case. “I can’t respond to a lawsuit we haven’t seen, but I am confident this law is constitutional,” he said in a statement. “We will defend this strongly.”

In addition to the doctor and pharmacist identified as pregnant in the lawsuit, plaintiffs include the Birthmark Doula Collective, an organization comprised of individuals trained to provide pregnancy care before, during, and after birth.

Among other plaintiffs Nancy DavisA woman who was denied an abortion in Louisiana and traveled out of state for an abortion after learning her fetus would not survive. A woman who says she was turned away from two emergency rooms rather than treated for a miscarriage is also part of the lawsuit.

Before reclassification, a prescription was still needed to obtain mifepristone and misoprostol in Louisiana. The new law reclassified the pills as “Schedule IV drugs,” putting them in the same category as the opioid tramadol and other potentially addictive substances.

The new classification means that if a person knowingly possesses mifepristone or misoprostol for any purpose without a valid prescription, that person could be fined up to $5,000 and imprisoned for one to five years.

The law provides protections for pregnant women who take the drug without a prescription take it on their own.

The legislation is the first of its kind in the United States. While GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, many Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion groups have touted the new classification, doctors have also Warned of fatal delays The situation that the law may cause.

Under the new classification, doctors say there are extra steps and stricter storage requirements that could slow access to medicine in emergency situations. Pills not only encourage abortion, they also treating miscarriages, Induce labor and stop bleeding.

Before the law, some doctors said misoprostol would be kept in a box in the hospital room, on the delivery table or in the nurse’s pocket. But under the classification’s new requirements, drugs could be found in a locked container down the hall or potentially in pharmacies in smaller hospitals.

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McGill reported from New Orleans.