Pro-choice organizations that help American women obtain medical abortions vow to continue their activities nationwide even if the Supreme Court attempts to limit or ban the practice in an expected ruling.
What there is to know
- Medical abortion is one of the most commonly used methods of terminating a pregnancy in the United States today.
- Anti-abortion groups have gone to court hoping to prevent pro-choice organizations from sending required medications through the mail to states where terminations of pregnancies are banned.
- The Supreme Court must issue a decision regarding access to mifepristone, one of the drugs in question, which could limit access to this cross-border practice. Health workers promise to defy possible restrictions on this subject.
This is particularly the case with Aid Access, which allows thousands of women each month to receive at home, by mail, the doses of mifepristone and misopristol required to terminate their pregnancies, including in a number of states where Abortion is prohibited in all its forms.
Members of the organization who handle the online consultations needed to obtain the drugs “intend to continue” regardless of what the highest US court says, warns Rebecca Gomperts, who runs Aid Access.
“They are determined to continue their work,” explains The Press Mme Gomperts, a Dutch-born pro-choice doctor who created the program in 2018 in response to a growing number of states increasing restrictions on access to abortion.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the plethora of restrictive laws following the Supreme Court’s reversal of the ruling in 2022 Roe v. Wade caused demand to explode.
Interested women contact Aid Access and are referred to trained health care workers in the United States who verify their pregnancy status and explain what to do before approving shipment of medications.
The drugs are transported through unmarked envelopes, which makes their detection very complicated, including in states that have banned abortion in all its forms.
PHOTO SOPHIE PARK, THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVES
Medication doses for abortion prepared by Aid Access are shipped in unmarked envelopes.
Several antiabortion groups have decided to go to court to end this practice by attacking access to mifepristone, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) around twenty years ago.
The Supreme Court intends to take up the matter
While rejecting the request to revoke the FDA’s approval of the drug, the courts supported the idea that it was necessary to tighten the conditions of access by returning to the standards in force in 2016.
These rules notably required women wanting to terminate their pregnancies to appear in person before a doctor, a requirement that could force residents of states where abortion is prohibited to travel hundreds of kilometers rather than proceed discreetly online.
The Supreme Court announced in December that it intended to take up the matter and that it plans to hear the parties concerned during the summer.
PHOTO ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The Supreme Court of the United States, Monday
Amy Merrill, co-founder of Plan C, an organization supporting women seeking abortion, notes that the requested restrictions have “no scientific or medical basis.”
Remote prescribing and taking mifepristone in combination with misopristol have proven effective and do not present major risks, says Mme Merrill, who denounces the “political” motivations behind the current protest.
The presence of organizations like Aid Access and online pharmacies ensures that medications will remain accessible no matter what, notes the administrator.
It is also possible to precipitate an abortion only with misopristol even if the effectiveness is less and the side effects are more serious, notes Mme Merrill.
“Shield” laws
Temple University law professor Rachel Rebouché notes that a half-dozen pro-choice states have adopted since the overthrow of Roe v. Wade “shield” laws aimed at protecting health care workers who facilitate access to abortion from prosecution.
These laws explicitly state that protection also applies to acts in support of people living in other states.
“They have not yet been tested in court,” underlines Mme Rebouché, who expects legal disputes between opposing states on the issue of abortion to increase.
Some local governments impose harsh penalties on professionals who perform abortions despite existing bans.
In Texas, they face a maximum prison sentence of 100 years and $100,000 per procedure, but jurisdictional issues mean that a doctor prescribing the drugs from the neighboring state is not necessarily liable to prosecution. .
The interventions of the federal government, which has the power to approve and regulate the use of drugs used for abortion, add to the legal complexity of the situation.
Mme Gomperts notes that the American healthcare workers she collaborates with intend to use shield laws to protect themselves if necessary.
They might also cite their professional obligation to provide the best possible care to their patients in an attempt to evade justice, she said.
The founder of Aid Access notes that her organization will always retain the option of returning to its old structure if legal pressures become too strong in the United States.
The prescriptions were previously produced in the Netherlands and the drugs were sent to the United States by a manufacturer established in India, making any legal challenge by American groups extremely complex.
“We’ll see how things go,” concludes M.me Gomperts.