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

While there was already a near-total ban on abortion in Louisiana, including medication, the reclassification of the drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol, which have other critical reproductive health uses — took effect earlier this month. Supporters of the law said more surveillance and control of the drug was needed to prevent forced abortions. They used as an example a case in Texas where a pregnant woman was given seven pills of misoprostol by her husband without her knowledge. The child survived.

Doctors who criticize the law said it could harm patients facing emergency complications, such as postpartum hemorrhage, by requiring medical staff to go through extra steps and stricter storage requirements to use the drugs.

“Even short delays in accessing misoprostol can be life-threatening for patients with postpartum hemorrhage,” the lawsuit says. The law is said to violate the Louisiana Constitution in several ways, including a ban on discrimination based on a person’s physical condition.

Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill said she had not seen the lawsuit as of Thursday afternoon. “I can’t comment on a lawsuit I haven’t seen, but I’m confident this law is constitutional,” she said in a statement. “We will defend it vigorously.”

In addition to the doctor and pharmacist, who the suit says is pregnant, the plaintiffs in the case include the Birthmark Doula Collective, an organization of people trained to provide pregnancy care before, during and after birth.

Other claimants include Nancy Davisa woman who was denied an abortion in Louisiana and traveled out of state for one after learning her fetus would not survive. A woman who said she was turned away from two emergency rooms instead of being treated for a miscarriage is also part of the lawsuit.

Before the reclassification, a prescription was still required 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 someone knowingly possesses mifepristone or misoprostol without a valid prescription for any purpose, they could be fined up to $5,000 and sent to prison for one to five years.

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

The legislation is the first of its kind in the U.S. While GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, many Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion groups have pushed for the new classification, doctors have warned of deadly delays which the law could cause.

Under the new classification, doctors say there are additional steps and stricter storage requirements that could slow access to drugs in emergency situations. Beyond inducing abortions, the pill is also common treat miscarriages, induces labor and stops bleeding.

Before the law, some doctors said misoprostol would be kept in a box in the hospital room, on the delivery table or in a nurse’s pocket. But under the new classification requirements, drugs can be in the hallway in a locked container or potentially in an in-house pharmacy at smaller hospitals.

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McGill reported from New Orleans.