The Food and Drug Administration will allow what amounts to abortion by mail, overturning protections for women and the unborn held over from former President Donald Trump’s administration.
According to The Associated Press, Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting head of the FDA, advised the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of a forthcoming change that would lift the ban on allowing women to obtain the abortifacient drug mifepristone without ever setting foot in a medical office.
When taken in combination with the hormone blocker misoprostol, the pill causes a medically induced abortion early in pregnancy.
Such terminations account for 40 percent of the thousands of abortions performed in the U.S. each year.
In her letter Monday to the organization, Woodcock claimed studies on the drug “do not appear to show increases in serious safety concerns” when women take the medication without an in-person consultation.
However, even abortion giant Planned Parenthood acknowledges the serious side effects that can include infection, excessive bleeding and the passing of clots “bigger than a lemon” for more than two hours.
It also lists death as one of the serious side effects — for the mother, that is.
Notably, survival of the fetus is also considered a “side effect,” as is an incomplete abortion that leaves behind fetal tissue that can cause further complications for the woman.
These seem serious enough to warrant at least a cursory exam from a medical professional before doling out such a pill, but the right to kill an unborn baby trumps the welfare of the woman every time for the pro-abortion zealots.
Since its approval in 2000, mifepristone was handed out only in clinics, hospitals or other medical settings where the expectant mother was required to sign off on the serious risks before obtaining the single-pill dose, though she was not required to take the medication there.
But during the COVID-19 pandemic, ACOG sued to have the in-person requirement lifted to allow for patients to be given the drug remotely.
While a lower court ruled in the organization’s favor at the time, the U.S. Supreme court ultimately upheld the requirement that women obtain the drug in a medical setting.
BREAKING: ACOG win! The @US_FDA Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock has notified @ACOG and @MySMFM that the agency will “exercise enforcement discretion” regarding #mifepristone through the duration of the #COVID19 public health emergency. 1/ pic.twitter.com/PDpJ7000bc
— ACOG Action (@ACOGAction) April 13, 2021
Now the FDA will dispense with that requirement — ostensibly because of the pandemic — and allow any woman to obtain the powerful drug that kills unborn children and carries serious side effects without meeting with a medical professional in person.
“With this action, the Biden administration has made it clear that they will prioritize abortion over women’s safety,” Jeanne Mancini, president for the pro-life organization March for Life, said in a statement. “Allowing unsupervised chemical abortions via telemedicine, without requiring timely access to medical care, will put women in grave danger.”
“Chemical abortions should have more medical oversight, not less,” she added.
Data released in 2018 by the FDA shows thousands of adverse events caused by abortion pills, including 768 hospitalizations and 24 deaths since 2000. Chemical abortions should have more medical oversight not less. (2/2)https://t.co/OTP9dQylI7
— March for Life (@March_for_Life) April 13, 2021
Of course, Planned Parenthood applauded this measure as it does every time it becomes easier to snuff out another baby.
“Mifepristone is safe, effective, and has been used by 4+ million people since the FDA approved it more than 20 years ago,” the nation’s largest abortion provider tweeted Monday.
“Removing medically unnecessary barriers to it is a big win for abortion access & keeps patients, providers, and health center staff safer during the pandemic.”
Mifepristone is safe, effective, and has been used by 4+ million people since the FDA approved it more than 20 years ago. Removing medically unnecessary barriers to it is a big win for abortion access & keeps patients, providers, and health center staff safer during the pandemic. https://t.co/ygDB6rxRpw
— Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) April 13, 2021
While the convenience and relative safety of the drug are used to justify easier access to it, chemical terminations are also more palatable to doctors and patients than invasive surgical procedures.
Abortion is easier to stomach — and therefore market — when the baby is young enough to be easily passed using a drug cocktail that the woman can have delivered to her home.
It’s messy business dismembering the babies’ tiny bodies before their parts are counted, bagged up and taken away by a medical waste company (when not being sold off for research).
But lifting the in-person requirement for mifepristone also increases the likelihood that crucial information is overlooked.
After all, the woman could be further along in her pregnancy than she reports, or she could be coerced by her partner (or her abuser) into getting the drug, both of which are easier to discover if she’s required to come into a medical facility.
She also might take the lack of medical oversight as an implicit promise that the medication isn’t really that serious and thus take it at her own peril.
The left always applauds these measures that grant “access” to an evil and throws in language about reducing the “stigma” associated with women killing their babies.
It uses this kind of language to speak about abortion as a morally neutral activity rather than a reprehensible crime against the most vulnerable humans.
Ironically, the left loves regulations except when it comes to a medical procedure that is considered successful when it kills one of the parties involved — then it’s all about privacy, destigmatization and access regardless of the risks.
Women and babies deserve better than this, but it’s clear they’ll never get the protection they deserve as long as a Democrat is in the White House.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
