Within hours of the Supreme Court ruling overturning the right to abortion in the United States, nearly 100 requests for appointments were received at Just the Pill, a non-profit organization that allows patients to to get the abortion pill in several states.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
That’s about four times the usual daily number of appointment requests the organization receives, and many of them are from patients in Texas and other states who quickly halted abortions after the ruling. of the United States Supreme Court.
Abortion pills, already used in more than half of recent abortions in the United States, are in even greater demand since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and they will likely be at the center of the legal battles that lie ahead, as nearly half of the states plan to ban abortion and others take steps to increase access.
The method, known as medical abortion, is cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It involves taking two different medications, 24 or 48 hours apart, to stop the development of the pregnancy and then induce miscarriage-like contractions to expel the fetus, a process that usually causes bleeding similar to heavy periods.
Many patients choose medical abortion because it is less expensive, less invasive, and offers more privacy than surgical abortion. The pills can be received by mail and taken at home or anywhere after an initial consultation with a doctor via video, phone, in person, or even just by filling out an online form.
The patient must come to the consultation from a state that allows abortion, even if it is just a matter of being on the phone in a car just across the border. The IP address of the computer or phone she uses allows the clinic to determine where she is.
For states that prohibit all forms of abortion, medical abortion is likely to pose significant enforcement challenges. It’s one thing to close a clinic, but it’s much more difficult to control activities like sending or receiving pills in the mail or traveling to a state where pills are legal to have a consultation. and recover them, say legal experts.
“People say we’re going back to before Roe, but there’s no time machine; we have a very different pharmaceutical landscape,” said Katie Watson, a constitutional scientist and medical ethicist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Abortion laws that are beginning to take effect in many conservative states prohibit all forms of abortion, including medical abortion. In addition, 19 states already had laws prohibiting the use of telemedicine for abortion. Texas recently passed a law banning the mailing of abortion pills. Thus, groups and some state governments that support abortion rights are mobilizing to help patients obtain the pills in states where they are legal.
Mobile clinics
Since October 2020, Just the Pill has provided over 2,500 telemedicine consultations with doctors to deliver abortion pills by mail to patients in Colorado, Minnesota, Montana and Wyoming. Within days, she plans to deploy the first of what will become “a fleet of mobile clinics” in Colorado that will station along state lines, offering consultations for medical abortions and dispensing pills, the agency said. DD Julie Amaon, medical director of the organization.
Called Abortion Delivered, the mobile clinic program, which will also offer surgical abortions to patients who prefer it or whose pregnancy is too advanced for medical termination, is designed to reach patients in neighboring states, such as Texas, Oklahoma and South Dakota, which quickly banned abortion after the court ruling, and other states, such as Utah, which should ban or severely restrict abortion.
“By operating at state borders, we will reduce travel constraints for patients in states that prohibit or severely restrict abortion,” said Ms.me Amon.
Going beyond a traditional brick-and-mortar clinic, our mobile clinics can quickly adapt to courts, state legislatures and marketplaces, going where the need is.
The DD Julie Amaon, medical director of Just the Pill
Similar medical abortion providers are also bracing for an influx. Hey Jane, an organization that has served nearly 10,000 patients in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, and New York and Washington states, plans to expand to other states. “We have strengthened our team to cope with this significant increase in demand,” said its CEO, Kiki Freedman.
Anti-abortion groups are trying to counter the growing interest in medical abortion by claiming it is unsafe, calling it a “chemical abortion”. James Studnicki, vice president of data analysis at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said Friday that “the safety of the abortion pill is greatly exaggerated” and called the rise in medical abortion a “serious threat to public health”.
Uncertainty and Commitments
Much is still unknown about how states that ban all or most abortions will attempt to enforce their laws in medical abortion cases. But as the Biden administration scrambles to respond to the court’s ruling, two cabinet members quickly released statements pledging to protect the right to take federally approved drugs.
“We remain steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that every American has access to and ability to make health care decisions, including the right to a safe and legal abortion, such as medical abortion approved by the FDA for over 20 years,” Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Merrick Garland, the country’s attorney general, made specific reference to the medical abortion regime’s first drug, mifepristone.
PHOTO CAITLIN OCHS, REUTERS
Box of mifepristone, the first medication in the medical abortion regimen
In December, the FDA dramatically eased access to the drug by permanently removing the requirement for patients to obtain mifepristone by visiting a clinic or licensed physician in person.
“We stand ready to work with other branches of the federal government that seek to use their legal authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care,” Garland said. In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the drug mifepristone. States cannot ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment on its safety and effectiveness. »
But what the Justice Department can do is unclear. Some legal scholars have argued that federal drug approval supersedes state actions to restrict the use of a drug. Others say it only applies to cases where a state claims safety or efficacy is an issue.
This article was originally published in the New York Times.