Abortionists and their friends in Minnesota have been making the most of this crisis. Less than a week after Governor Walz gave abortionists special treatment by exempting them from his stay at home order, Attorney General Keith Ellison joined with 20 other attorneys general in sending a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn requesting the removal of safety regulations on the abortion pill. In the letter, current regulations were referred to as “burdensome,” dismissing the known dangers of the abortion pill.
Legalized in 2000, the “abortion pill” is a chemical abortion procedure in which the mother takes two pills, the first one killing the baby, and the second to expel the child from the womb. Since legalization, there have been 4,200 reports of adverse effects, including severe hemorrhaging, infection, septic shock. Additional risks are involved in cases of ectopic pregnancy or if the mother is more than ten weeks pregnant, which is why a medical exam is required. As of 2018, the abortion pill has resulted in 24 maternal deaths, including two in 2018 alone.
Because of the associated risks, the abortion pill is regulated under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS). Abortion activists have long objected to these regulations, and in recent years have been working to get around them by launching a mail-order abortion clinical trial in multiple states, recently including Minnesota. Many abortionists and their allies have seen the COVID-19 crisis as a perfect opportunity to promote and deregulate an already dangerous abortion procedure. Ellison and the other attorneys general appealing to Secretary Azar and Commissioner Hahn are advancing this narrative by claiming that safety regulations “create unnecessary barriers” to abortion, thus demonstrating a greater concern for the interests of the abortion lobby than for the lives of children and the safety of women. If Attorney General Ellison is really interested in the safety and well-being of Minnesotans, he’ll stop using a crisis to promote dangerous, do-it-yourself abortions.
