It’s been almost two years since the Supreme Court finally clarified, in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health, that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Still, sadly the number of abortions is rising. Not content with pushing “abortion on demand until birth” state laws, the pro-death lobby is fighting to make the abortion pill more available with fewer life-saving safeguards. “Safe, Legal and Rare,” the famous Clinton era slogan, might as well be replaced with “Unsafe, Illegal and Everywhere.”
A study released by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute last week found that in 2023 there were an estimated 1,026,690 abortions in the “formal” U.S. healthcare system, a 10% increase since 2020. Every state without a total ban saw an increase in the number of abortions performed.
Not only are the total numbers and rates of abortion the highest they have been in more than a decade but the total percentage of “chemical” or “medication” abortions is also horribly great. In 2023, 642,700 medication abortions took place, a shocking 63% of all abortions and up from 53% in 2020.
The abortion industry is pushing for more do-it-yourself abortions, via the dangerous two-drug cocktail of mifepristone and misoprostol, as a way to get around many state pro-life laws. Starting over 20 years ago with the Clinton Administration that initially fought to okay the abortion drug, through Obama’s FDA weakening the safety standards, to the Biden Administration eliminating the remaining and necessary in-person examination requirement, the pro-abortion lobby and their friends in government are determined to increase chemical abortions at the expense of women’s health.
The Supreme Court can be the voice of reason once again, as it hears an important case on March 26, 2024, FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. This case challenges the FDAs decision to remove critical safeguards and allow the drugs to be dispensed through the mail.
In 2021, the Biden Administration’s FDA eliminated the requirement of a physical examination by a doctor to determine not only gestational age but also ectopic pregnancy, before the abortion pill could be dispensed. A coalition of pro-life medical associations brought the case against the FDA to force them to explain why they removed critical safeguards that they had deemed necessary for the drug’s initial approval in 2000. They argue that the FDA ignored their own standards in approving the lax regulations.
The Washington Stand reported on the dangers of the abortion drug in a recent article, stating, “the FDA documented 4,207 adverse events from mifepristone use — including 26 deaths, 1,045 hospitalizations, 603 events requiring a blood transfusion, and 413 infections between 2000 and 2021.” These high numbers are in spite of the fact that in 2016 the mandatory reporting requirements were changed so that doctors only have to report deaths, and not other complications, from the use of these abortifacients.
In 2021, the Biden Administration’s FDA lifted the in-person examination by a doctor before prescribing the drugs, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse. However, the lack of a physical examination allows women who are past the 10-week gestational limit to get and take the drugs, which can cause severe physical complications, not to mention the mental anguish of “passing” an identifiable baby at home in the bathroom. Now that the pandemic is over, the FDA refuses to reconsider this dangerous regulation change.
In addition, nearly 2% of pregnancies are ectopic, meaning the fertilized egg is implanted in the fallopian tube and not the uterus. Taking mifepristone and misoprostol when a pregnancy is ectopic can be fatal. That means as many as 12,000 women each year can face severe complications and even death from undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies. For the sake of women’s lives, this in-person examination must be required.
Eagle Forum is pleased to have signed onto an amicus brief filed in this case by Advancing American Freedom. The brief not only outlines the “scandalous flaws in the FDA’s September 28, 2000, approval of RU-486 (“mifepristone”) as a chemical abortifacient, which was clearly a political rather than scientific decision” but also makes the point that, “the FDA’s increasingly lax reporting and use requirements for the drugs make it almost impossible to determine the true scope of the danger posed by chemical abortion drugs.”
The Supreme Court must reign in the illegal rule-making by the FDA that ignores the health and safety of women. As a nation, we must work together to support women in crisis, not encourage them to ingest dangerous chemicals that not only kill their unborn children but increase the likelihood that the mothers will face serious physical and mental health complications. We must take a stand for life and the rule of law.
Further Reading: Pro-Life
