F.D.A. Will Permanently Allow Abortion Pills by Mail..

[Sevens My Charm]

The decision will broaden access to medication abortion, an increasingly common method, but many conservative states are already mobilizing against it.

The federal government on Thursday permanently lifted a major restriction on access to abortion pills. It will allow patients to receive the medication by mail instead of requiring them to obtain the pills in person from specially certified health providers.

The decision, by the Food and Drug Administration, comes as the Supreme Court is considering whether to roll back abortion rights or even overturn its landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that made abortion legal nationwide.

The F.D.A.’s action means that medication abortion, an increasingly common method authorized in the United States for pregnancies up to 10 weeks’ gestation, will become more available to women who find it difficult to travel to an abortion provider or prefer to terminate a pregnancy in the privacy of their homes. It allows patients to have a telemedicine appointment with a provider who can prescribe abortion pills and send them to the patient by mail.

Earlier this year, for the duration of the pandemic, the F.D.A. temporarily lifted the in-person requirement on mifepristone, the first of two drugs used to end a pregnancy. The decision to make this change permanent is likely to deepen the already polarizing divisions between conservative and liberal states on abortion. In 19 states, mostly in the South and the Midwest, telemedicine visits for medication abortion are banned, and these and other conservative states can be expected to pass other laws to further curtail access to abortion pills.

Yet other states, like California and New York, which have taken steps in recent years to further solidify abortion rights, are expected to increase the availability of the method and provide opportunities for women in states with restrictions to obtain abortion pills by traveling to a state that allows them.

“It’s really significant,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University. “Telehealth abortions are much easier for both providers and patients, and even in states that want to do it, there have been limits on how available it is.”

So far this year, presumably in anticipation of such a decision, six states banned the mailing of pills, seven states passed laws requiring pills to be obtained in person from a provider, and four states passed laws to set the limit on medication abortion at earlier than 10 weeks’ gestation, said Elizabeth Nash, the interim associate director of state issues for the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

The current practice is that women who live in states that don’t allow telemedicine for abortion must travel to a state that does — although they don’t have to visit a clinic. They may be in any location within that state for their telehealth visit, even a car, and may receive the pills at any address in the state.

But legal experts said they expected supporters of abortion rights to try to find ways to make the pills available without requiring a patient to travel, including possibly filing legal challenges to state laws banning telemedicine for abortion.

In data released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of all abortions — and 54 percent of abortions before 10 weeks — occurred with medication in 2019, the most recent year for which C.D.C. data is available. (The report represents most of the country, but does not include data from California, Maryland and New Hampshire.)
In 2020, some states, including Indiana, Kansas and Minnesota, the method accounts for a majority of abortions, according to state health department reports.

The C.D.C. also reported that 79 percent of all abortions occurred before 10 weeks’ gestation, suggesting that there are many more women who might choose abortion pills over an in-clinic procedure if they could.

Medication abortion, a two-drug regimen, was approved in the United States in 2000. The F.D.A. imposed restrictions on the first drug, mifepristone, requiring that it be dispensed in clinics or hospitals by specially certified providers, who must sign a specific agreement and obtain the patient’s signature on a formacknowledging that their provider has informed them about the drug. The rules allowed patients to take mifepristone in their homes or anywhere they chose, making it the only drug that the agency required patients to obtain in person from a medical provider but are not required to take under medical supervision, experts say.

The second drug, misoprostol, which is taken up to 48 hours after the first, has long been obtainable with a regular prescription at a pharmacy.

Mainstream medical organizations and abortion rights groups have long urged the government to ease restrictions on mifepristone, citing data indicating that mifepristone is effective and safe, including when dispensed by mail.

For example, a research program that the F.D.A. allowed to provide telemedicine consultations and send pills by mail reported that 95 percent of the 1,157 abortions that occurred through the program between May 2016 and September 2020 were completed without requiring any follow-up procedure. Patients made 70 visits to emergency rooms or urgent care centers, with 10 instances of serious complications, the study reported.

F.D.A. Will Permanently Allow Abortion Pills by Mail

The decision will broaden access to medication abortion, an increasingly common method, but many conservative states are already mobilizing against it.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Brillig]

That's an excellent first step.

America is getting more backwards every day.

 

[Sejanus]

It's a slippery slope when government starts mandating what can and cannot be done in your own home.

It doesn't matter to me if a woman decides that she wants to abort a pregnancy quite frankly.
The way I see it is that if you are a religious person and it offends you, you have to take a step back and ask yourself if you believe in God.
If you do, you should understand it won't be your responsibility to judge someone... it will be god's.
Take the pill or don't take the pill it's not on me.
Just know what you are choosing.

 

[Sevens My Charm]

@Sejanus Something like…

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

 

[Totemic]

I believe that its up to the people involved to make that choice. With the woman having the final decision, it is her body, its not mine.

I dislike the fact that our government is trying and willing to control what can and can't be done to our bodies. If a person decides that they do not wish to have children, then please let them get their tubes tied or snipped.

That said, abortion is not birth control.

 

[Brillig]

It's a slippery slope when government starts mandating what can and cannot be done in your own home.

Yes, it truly is.
[automerge]1639754128[/automerge]
I'm pro-choice. Could/would I have an abortion? I don't know, I was never in a position to make that decision. But I know for certain it is NOT my place to make that choice for others or to force my views on them.

It embarrassing that in modern times, the US is going backwards on this issue, not forwards. We look like some absurd, ignorant third world country.

 

[Sudonim]

With the woman having the final decision, it is her body, its not mine

One of the questions you are asked is who the father is. Fathers must give consent for an abortion to happen. The only way around that is to say you dont know who the father is. Things are still a long long way off 'my body my decision'.

 

[Totemic]

One of the questions you are asked is who the father is. Fathers must give consent for an abortion to happen. The only way around that is to say you dont know who the father is. Things are still a long long way off 'my body my decision'.

I agree. The comment about it's still her final decision is if both parties have discussed it. Hypothetically saying you go pregnant, said no you don't want it, but I argued to have the baby (yeah right), it would still be your final choice, not mine.

 

[Sudonim]

I agree. The comment about it's still her final decision is if both parties have discussed it. Hypothetically saying you go pregnant, said no you don't want it, but I argued to have the baby (yeah right), it would still be your final choice, not mine.

Hypothetically yes, but under the law, no. I'd be forced into a life long commitment of raising a child I didnt want! The world is a twisted place that goes so far to allow a rapist to sue if you abort his baby against his wishes.

In Tennessee they are pushing the fathers right so much that this year they put a bill forward that essentially means if the woman admits hes the father, he can have the court step in and force her to carry the pregnancy to full term. If she claims she doesn't know who the father is but the guy says its his..they can forcefully get dna without the mothers consent. There are only 3 ways to determine this prior to birth. The less invasive is a blood draw but its also the least reliable. The other 2 are very invasive and very painful. One is scrapping cells from the placenta and the other is a foot long needle jabbed into the stomach to take amniotic fluid.

The world is ass backwards in so many ways.