It’s common knowledge at this point that abortion has become the sacred cow of the left; unimpeachable in all respects, it must be protected at all costs. We’re past the point of debating whether the unborn child is worthy of protection.
For the most radical believers in the pro-abortion religion, we’re past even the point of debating whether pre-born babies are human. They know they are, and they don’t care. From the days of “safe, legal, and rare” to the more recent “shout your abortion” social media trend, the evil of the abortion industry has exponentially increased over the last few decades.
Making matters harder for pro-life legislators and activists is the fact that the frontlines of this battle have largely moved away from Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities into the private bathrooms of countless women, where they face—usually alone—the devastating result of the decision to self-administer abortion drugs.
Life After Dobbs
What many pro-life Americans don’t realize is that the abortion rate has increased by roughly 20% in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. While we rightly celebrated the reversal of Roe, many nominally pro-life people incorrectly assumed the matter was settled and went back to their lives, not realizing that, with Pandora well and truly out of the box, Dobbs by no means spelled an end to abortion in the United States.
What Dobbs did accomplish was to send abortion regulations back to the states, making it possible for over half to move to enact protections for the unborn, ranging from heartbeat and pain-capable laws to a complete ban on the practice at any stage in gestation. Unfortunately, a lack of federal regulations on abortion drugs is making it difficult to impossible for pro-life states to protect women and their babies from the burgeoning number of abortion drug businesses. At this point, chemical abortions account for approximately 65% of abortions, and that number will likely rise.
A Poison Pill
It used to be that women seeking chemical abortion had to at least visit their doctor in person, undergoing an ultrasound to confirm gestational age and location of the unborn child to ensure the safety of the mother. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, that changed. In the name of ensuring access to abortion (always of paramount importance to the Left), the Biden Administration changed the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for the abortion drug mifepristone to allow women to forgo the in-person dispensing requirement.
One would expect that the ostensibly pro-life Trump Administration would have moved to reinstate the prior REMS upon taking office, but the president seems to maintain that he’s already done what the people wanted by sending abortion back to the states. Even with repeated calls from pro-life legislators, lobbyists, and concerned citizens to close the mifepristone loopholes, the Trump FDA has slow-walked proposed studies on the harms of the drug.
Unexamined Consequences
Unsurprisingly, the government’s hands-off approach to abortion drugs has meant further harm to women, with rising numbers of complications like hemorrhage and infection. No doubt this is at least partially occurring in women who miscalculate their date of conception or are unaware their pregnancy is ectopic.
In another horrifying but also completely predictable development, there is also a growing list of cases of abusers who have acquired mifepristone on their own and then either coerced their pregnant wife or girlfriend to take it, or even worse, slipped it into their food or drink without their knowledge. Sadly, many babies have died because of this abuse and exploitation of current federal law.
Federal Delinquency
The FDA could stop this right now by, at minimum, reinstating the in-person requirement for prescribing and dispensing these medications. In fact, the courts are currently considering a case brought against the FDA by the pro-life state of Louisiana. The Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) must also enforce the Comstock Act, a law already on the books that prohibits mailing abortion-inducing drugs. But for now, the hands of pro-life states are tied, and women and babies are at risk.
Political conversation around abortion has long focused on abortion giant Planned Parenthood, but more and more, these abortion drugs are coming from obscure websites and pro-abortion organizations that have popped up in the days since Dobbs. For pro-life states seeking to enforce their laws, locating the source and stopping the flow of abortion drugs across their borders has turned into an impossible game of Whac-a-mole.
Over half the states have done the right thing by passing legislation to protect the unborn. It’s time for the federal government to empower them to enforce these lifesaving laws.
