ICYMI
ICYMI: NYT Editorial Board Sounds the Alarm on Anti-Abortion Republicans’ Attacks on Medication Abortion
ICYMI: NYT Editorial Board Sounds the Alarm on Anti-Abortion Republicans’ Attacks on Medication Abortion
A new opinion piece from the New York Times Editorial Board underscores what we and other reproductive freedom advocates have been warning for months: Anti-abortion extremists are working to weaponize every level of government, from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the courts, to restrict access to medication abortion—even in states where abortion is currently protected.
Rolling back access to abortion care, including medication abortion care, in their own states isn’t enough for anti-abortion Republicans and the other extremists they cater to. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and prosecutors in Louisiana have taken aggressive action against medication abortion providers in other states in an attempt to enforce their states’ extreme abortion bans across state lines. Texas also recently passed HB 7, a cruel bounty-hunter abortion ban that will allow Texans to sue manufacturers, distributors, or providers of medication abortion and receive a minimum of $100,000 in damages.
At the federal level, FDA Commissioner Martin Makary recently announced that the FDA would be conducting a politically-motivated, bogus review of mifepristone after pressure from Senator Josh Hawley and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Meanwhile, telemedicine abortion care accounts for approximately one-quarter of all abortions in the United States, and is a critical resource for people who may face barriers to in-person care, such as those who live in rural areas or in states with abortion bans and restrictions. Amid attacks on medication abortion, eight states have passed telemedicine abortion shield laws with explicit protections for doctors who provide medication abortion pills to patients in other states through telemedicine.
As the New York Times Editorial Board wrote:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, has directed the Food and Drug Administration to review the safety of mifepristone, an abortion pill, based on what he called “new data.” Mr. Kennedy appeared to be referring to an unpublished paper by a conservative think tank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Other researchers have debunked that paper as junk science.
[…]
Nonetheless, 22 Republican state attorneys cited the debunked paper in pressing the F.D.A. to restrict mifepristone. In response, Mr. Kennedy said that his department would conduct a review. As with vaccines, it is a sign that he will not let good science stand in the way of bad policy.
[…]
For now, eight blue states have enacted laws to protect people who provide abortion pills to women in other states. These policies are known as telehealth shield laws, and Massachusetts passed the first one in 2022. The eight states will not comply with any legal action that another state takes against a provider who sends pills across state borders.
[…]
Since Dobbs, more than 100 patients have been denied emergency care, or experienced harrowing delays, because doctors were afraid to treat them. At least five women in Georgia and Texas died because they did not receive care that they needed, according to ProPublica.
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For over 55 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.