[Federalist] Americans are divided on abortion, but even abortion supporters should want abortion to be safe — at least for the woman. Unfortunately, our new research shows that the chemical abortion drug mifepristone became significantly more dangerous to women after the Biden administration watered down safety rules in an effort to appease pro-abortion advocates.We recently analyzed the data on mifepristone’s serious adverse events, looking before and after Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed a longstanding requirement for a woman to see a medical professional in person before chemical abortion could be prescribed or dispensed. What we found is not surprising: Removing a doctor from the process makes things worse for women. Indeed, the rate of serious adverse events was significantly higher after the FDA’s in-person dispensing requirement was removed, especially as mifepristone was inappropriately prescribed for women with an ectopic pregnancy, a life-threatening condition that can be diagnosed by a physician only through an in-person visit.
From the time the Clinton FDA approved mifepristone until just about five years ago, the FDA required that a woman see a medical professional in person before chemical abortion could be prescribed or dispensed. The in-person visit was essential to determine the age of the unborn child, rule out an ectopic pregnancy, and ensure the woman was not being coerced into the abortion.
Nevertheless, the Biden FDA used Covid as an excuse to eliminate the required in-person visit, and women have paid the price.
After all, without requiring an in-person doctor visit, anyone can go online and get mail-order abortion pills. There is no way to ensure the unborn baby hasn’t grown so large that chemical abortion is unsafe for the mother, no way to ensure the unborn baby isn’t implanted outside the uterus where using chemical abortion drugs could prove deadly to the mother, and no way to ensure it’s the mother who is voluntarily requesting the chemical abortion drugs and not a boyfriend seeking the pills to secretly and coercively poison her.
Tragically, since the in-person requirement was lifted, we have seen countless instances where women were coercively poisoned to kill their unborn babies by boyfriends who ordered chemical abortion drugs online and slipped them into their drinks. It has become an unregulated free-for-all where no woman is truly protected. But it’s not just coercion that has documented instances; now we can show that removing the in-person doctor visit requirement has increased general health risks, and the misuse of chemical abortion in the case of ectopic pregnancy in particular.