A federal judge on Monday waived a rule requiring an in-person visit before obtaining the abortion pill after the ACLU argued that the requirement posed a “substantial obstacle” during COVID-19. The abortion pill is subject to the FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) protocol, and with good reason. In the 20 years that the abortion pill regimen has been legal in the U.S., thousands of women have experienced adverse effects and 24 have died. In May of this year, a woman who had taken the abortion pill was rushed from a Texas abortion facility to a nearby hospital as her oxygen levels dropped due to severe blood loss. Ignoring the dangers of the abortion pill, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic demanding that the FDA to waive the REMS requirement of an in-person visit.
Writing for Live Action, Nancy Flanders points out,
The purpose of undergoing a physical examination before taking the abortion pill is to ensure the gestational age of the child is not more than 10 weeks, that the woman is either Rh negative or positive, and that the pregnancy is not ectopic. In any of these cases, taking the abortion pill poses a potential health risk to the woman, including the possibility of future pregnancy loss, hysterectomy, and death.
Demanding the removal of in-person visits shows a serious disregard for the safety and well-being of women, and U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang was wrong to bow to the abortion lobby’s demands.
Abortion activists frequently argue that banning abortion would lead to dangerous, DIY abortions and claim that abortion restrictions endanger women. The reality is that those same abortion activists are the ones who are busily advocating for the removal of restrictions that are designed to keep women safe and promoting DIY home abortions in the form of the abortion pill regimen. If the abortion lobby truly cared about women’s safety, they would not be actively working to remove safety requirements on the abortion pill.
Judge Chuang argued that abortion pill safety requirements “constitute irreparable harm” in light of the “limited timeframe in which a medication abortion or any abortion must occur.” Such argument views pregnancy as a disease and treats a child’s life as a problem that needs to be resolved. The “limited timeframe” for abortion only exists because once a child is no longer in the womb, his life is seen as valuable and worthy of protection. The real irreparable harm is not brought about by abortion restrictions, but by abortion itself, and the abortion lobby’s obsession with removing safety restrictions reveals a disregard for the lives and well-being of women and their babies.
Image: Flickr, Robin Marty, CC BY 2.0
