SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — It took a 32-year-old South Dakota woman two trips across state lines, navigating icy roads and a patchwork of state laws, to get abortion pills on last year.
For abortion seekers like her, such trips, along with mail-order pills, will loom large if the Supreme Court goes ahead with its leaked draft opinion. That would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade and would allow individual states to ban the procedure. The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was concerned for the safety of her family, said the abortion pills allowed her to end an unexpected and high-risk pregnancy and remain devoted to her two children.
But anti-abortion activists and politicians say such cross-border travel, remote medical consultations and pill deliveries are what they will try to stop next..
“Medication abortion is going to be where access to abortion is decided,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University School of Law who specializes in reproductive rights. “That will be the battlefield that will decide how enforceable the abortion bans are.”
The use of abortion pills has increased in the US since 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, the main drug used in medical abortions. More than half of abortions in the US they are now done with pills, rather than surgery, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
Last year, the FDA removed a long-standing requirement that women pick up abortion pills in person. Mail delivery is also now allowed throughout the country.
Those moves have spurred online services that offer information on how to obtain abortion pills and prescription consultations. After the woman in South Dakota discovered that the state’s only abortion clinic couldn’t schedule her for a medical abortion in time, she found an online service, called Just The Pill, that advised her to drive to Minnesota for a consultation. telephone with a doctor. . A week later, she went back to Minnesota for the pills.
He took the first one almost immediately in his car, then cried while driving home.
“I felt like I had miscarried,” she said. “I love my husband and I love my kids and I knew exactly what I had to say goodbye to and that was a really horrible thing.”
South Dakota is among several states, including Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Ohio, Tennessee and Oklahoma, where Republicans have moved to restrict access to abortion pills in recent months. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said Additional in-person visits for pills and ban on mailing are needed to protect women and save “unborn children.” A total of 19 states require a clinician to be physically present when abortion pills are administered to a patient.
In addition to crossing state lines, women can also turn to internationally based online pharmacies, said Greer Donley, a professor specializing in reproductive health care at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Some women also have prescription pills shipped across states without restrictions.
“It allows someone to have an abortion without the direct role of a provider. It is going to be much more difficult for states to control abortion access,” she said, adding, “The question is how it will be enforced.”
Sue Leibel, director of state policy for the Susan B. Anthony List, a prominent anti-abortion organization, acknowledged that it is an issue that “has crept in” among Republican state lawmakers.
“This is a new frontier and states are grappling with enforcement mechanisms,” he said, adding: “The advice I always give: If you close the front door, the pills will come in the back door.”
Opponents of abortion maintain that they have no intention of prosecuting women who seek abortions.
Instead, Leibel suggested that the next target for state enforcement should be the pharmacies, organizations and clinics that provide abortion pills. She also said that opponents of abortion rights should focus on electing a presidential candidate who would work to reverse the FDA’s decision.
The FDA said a scientific review supported expanding access to the drugs and found complications to be rare. The agency has reported 26 drug-associated deaths since 2000, although not all can be directly attributed to the medication due to existing health conditions and other factors.
However, with new legal battles on the horizon and abortion seekers going to great lengths to obtain the procedure, Donley, the law school professor, worried that state lawmakers may finally turn their attention to women who they get the pills.
“Many anti-abortion legislators might realize that the only way to enforce these laws is to prosecute the pregnant person,” he said.
Reference-apnews.com