The abortion pill would be on hand at virtually every public college in California under legislation introduced Friday in the state Senate.
The bill’s inception comes amid renewed attempts to slash funding for Planned Parenthood, which would no longer receive Medicaid reimbursements under the Republican-backed American Health Care Act.
If the health care plan were passed in its current form, $174 million would be slashed from the budget of California’s Planned Parenthood clinics. Although Planned Parenthood is the largest single provider of abortions in the country, it does not use federal money to provide the procedure.
“If those cuts are made, then I do believe this bill takes on a heightened sense of urgency,” state Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino (San Bernardino County), who put forth the bill, told The Chronicle. “Women in 2017 shouldn’t be fighting for access to their bodies.”
The American Health Care Act, a Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, is making its way through the House legislative process. As it does, a somewhat surprising group is reportedly hoping the bill fails.
The medication, two pills ingested orally, can be taken only within 10 weeks of a woman’s last period.
Kathy Kneer, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said the medication is safe and effective. Since the Food and Drug Administration approved the pill 16 years ago, 3 million women have taken the abortion pill, she said. Of those, 19 died from complications related to the medication — a mortality rate lower than that of giving birth.
“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be readily available in student health centers,” Kneer said. “There’s no medical justification.”
The availability of the abortion service on campuses would be the first in the nation. Last year, the elected student leaders of UC Berkeley lobbied the administration to provide the abortion pill at the campus health center, but their demands never came to fruition. UC Berkeley spokespeople said they weren’t available to discuss the matter.
“Because our health center includes a pretty comprehensive amount of sexual and reproductive services, not providing abortions reinforces the idea that abortion is not a part of women’s health, when it absolutely is,” said Adiba Khan, 20, a student who pushed for the service to be offered on campus. “For undergrads and graduate students, abortion is part of their life. It’s normal and should be available as easily and cheaply as possible.”
Khan said friends of hers who took the abortion pills were initially met with financial and academic roadblocks. Those who got their health insurance through the campus first had to meet with a counselor before they could be referred to an outside provider — a potential obstacle for the time-sensitive medication — and often missed class or work to travel to an abortion provider off campus, she said.
Marandah Field-Elliot, a student senator who helped organize the campaign to get the abortion service on campus, said an added bonus if the bill passes the state Legislature would be that UC Berkeley wouldn’t be the sole object of antiabortion activists. Already this year, UC Berkeley’s progressivism put the campus in the crosshairs of President Trump’s tweets when violent protests forced an event featuring controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos to be canceled.
“This bill would be so amazing, because it would spread the impacts rather than putting a target right on Berkeley,” Field-Elliot said.
The Women’s Centre used Google to target woman researching abortionsDADO RUVIC/REUTERS
Google has blocked an anti-abortion group from using advertisements on its search engine that encourage women to visit their rogue crisis pregnancy agency.
Last year The Times exposed how The Women’s Centre on Berkeley Street in Dublin was advising women that abortion caused breast cancer and could turn them into child abusers.
Despite claiming to be an objective source of information, The Women’s Centre is linked to The Good Counsel Network, an extreme Catholic group that has compared abortion to terrorism. The group paid Google so that its website, abortionadvice.ie, was the first or second result when a woman searched for information on how to access a legal abortion abroad. Women who call its “national helpline” are offered appointments at The Women’s Centre or one of the other clinics it claims to run across the country.
Google offers paid advertisements which can present a website as the first result under certain search terms. This week the company blocked The Women’s Centre from using its adverts because it had been found to be deceptive.
“We have a set of strict policies which govern what ads we do and do not allow on Google. We do not allow fraudulent or misrepresentative ads and when we discover ads that break our policies, we quickly take action,” a spokesman for Google said.
The site had specifically targeted women using Irish IP addresses who were entering search terms indicating that they were looking for information about how to access an abortion in the UK. Since the site’s removal from the top search results it has been replaced by a HSE website and the British Pregnancy Advisory service.
The Women’s Centre is facing closure after Simon Harris, the health minister, committed to pass legislation to regulate crisis pregnancy agencies that were offering misinformation. Mr Harris said that he was hoping to pass the law this summer.
Other anti-abortion groups and campaigners have also sought to use Google adverts to campaign ahead of a possible referendum on the Eighth Amendment. Over the course of the last meeting of the citizens assembly, a website alleging bias on the part of the forum paid to be the top search result.
Citizensassembly.info is a site registered through a proxy. On the site it is stated that it was set up by Josiah Burke, a business student from NUI Galway. Mr Burke is one of ten children in the Burke family in Castlebar. Members of the family are well-known as anti-abortion and anti-marriage equality campaigners. The family linked homosexuality to paedophilia during the marriage equality campaign, sparking a protest at the NUIG campus.
The website claims that the citizens’ assembly, which is considering the need to change Ireland’s abortion laws, is biased in favour of a repeal of the Eighth Amendment. At its last meeting, members of the assembly reacted angrily when Family and Life, an anti-abortion campaign group, used its presentation to claim that the assembly was biased and hearing evidence from “the abortion industry”. The 99 citizens had requested to hear from healthcare professionals who offered legal abortions to Irish women in the UK.
Family and Life has since sponsored its social media posts on sites like Facebook to claim that the assembly is biased.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, the assembly’s chair, has repeatedly defended the forum as being balanced and fair. At its next meeting in April the assembly members will ballot on what change, if any, should be made to Ireland’s constitutional near-ban on abortion. The assembly has considered leaving the Eighth Amendment as it is, amending it or replacing it with new legislation.
A Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic in Texas is reopening four years after an unconstitutional law caused it to close. This is a great sign for the rebuilding of abortion access in Texas since a restrictive law was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last summer.
House Bill 2 said clinics had to meet the requirements of an ambulatory surgical center and that providers had to have admitting privileges at hospitals.
These terms are very difficult for clinics to fulfill, and would involve construction for many clinics. After the law was put into effect, half of Texas’s abortion clinics were forced to shut down. The number of clinics in the state dropped from 41 to 19 from 2013 to 2016.
But Whole Woman’s Health fought the law, taking it to the Supreme Court. Last June, the Supreme Court ruled Texas’s law was unconstitutional.
This was a cause for celebration for Whole Woman’s Health and pro-choice women across the country.
The Supreme Court said the burdens on women clearly outweighed the health and safety benefits of the law.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a concurrence opinion, Given those realities, it is beyond rational belief that H. B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions.’
Before the Supreme Court ruled, these clinic closures caused problems for women seeking abortions.
Many women had to travel further for abortions with local clinics closed — and Texas is a big state.
Meanwhile, because there were fewer clinics, the remaining ones were experiencing long wait times for procedures. Delaying an abortion by a few days is significant as the pregnancy moves along.
Even with a positive Supreme Court ruling, Whole Woman’s Health knew it would take time to rebuild their service.
Clinics can’t just reopen with a snap of the fingers. It takes time and money for space, for rehiring staff, for setting up the medications and materials.
Andrea Ferrigno, Vice President of Whole Woman’s Health, told Elite Daily last year before the decision, The damage that these laws have caused, it’s going to take years to repair. In a statement on Thursday, Amy Hagstrom Miller, President and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, said she was committed to reopening the Austin clinic as soon as possible.
The Austin clinic was Whole Woman’s Health flagship clinic.
Abortion advocates are celebrating the reopening of the Austin Whole Woman’s Health clinic.
Greg Casar, a council member in Austin, said in a statement that “our community suffered a loss” when the clinic was forced to shut down. With the reopening of the Austin Whole Woman’s Health clinic, the residents of North Austin and beyond will have expanded access to safe, legal abortion care right here in our community. Stephanie Toti, the attorney who argued for Whole Woman’s Health in front of the Supreme Court, said, Today’s clinic reopening not only improves health care access for millions of Texas women, it shows the power of legal advocacy to move us toward a more just world.
This is great news for women in Texas, as it shows the clinics are recovering from the damage of the unconstitutional HB 2. With one more clinic open, the others will have less of a burden and more clients will be able to get responsible care.
Guterres pointed to extremists subjugating women and governments curtailing women’s freedoms and rolling back laws against domestic violence
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(UNITED NATIONS) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that women are suffering “new assaults on their safety and dignity” around the world, pointing to extremists subjugating women and governments curtailing women’s freedoms and rolling back laws against domestic violence.
He told the opening session of the Commission on the Status of Women that educating and empowering women will unleash their potential and prevent “challenges that arise from violent extremism, human rights violations, xenophobia and other threats.”
While Guterres didn’t name any countries or groups, his message was clearly aimed at the Islamic State extremist group which sells women and girls as sex slaves. It also appeared directed at U.S. President Donald Trump’s expansion of a ban on federal aid to international organizations that provide abortions or abortion information — and to Russia for new legislation decriminalizing some forms of domestic violence.
The U.N. chief said men still dominate in every country of the world and male chauvinism blocks women from getting ahead.
“Our world needs more women leaders,” Guterres said. “And our world needs more men standing up for gender equality.”
The executive director of U.N. Women, the United Nations agency promoting women’s rights, told the commission that changing discriminatory laws in over 150 countries “could affect more than three billion women and girls in the world.” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka also said that “advancing women’s equality in total could bring a potential boost of 28 trillion U.S. dollars to global annual GDP by 2025.”
But, she added in an echo of Guterres, while there has been some progress toward gender equality, gains have eroded and “the much needed positive developments are not happening fast enough.”
“With the global pay gap at an average of 23%, women are clearly earning consistently less than men,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
“Women regard this as daylight robbery,” she said. “Each year they work three months more than men for equivalent pay.”
She said over half of all women workers around the world — and up to 90% in some countries — are informally employed, such as low-cost farm workers, street food vendors and care workers, almost all without legal or social protection. In India alone, this sector accounts for 190 million women, she said.
“They are the under-the-radar and under-valued cogs in the bigger wheels of the formal economy,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
At an event Monday night on women’s economic empowerment, the theme of this year’s commission meeting, which ends March 24, UN Women and the International Labor Organization announced a group of equal pay “champions” to mobilize global action to achieve equal pay for work of equal value.
Oscar-winning actress Patricia Arquette, one of the champions, said last year that women were at “breaking point” when it comes to equal pay and this year she said it is “worse than breaking point.”
“Women have waited since the beginning of time to be treated equally,” she said. “I think the time has come now when we can’t wait any more.”
Retired American soccer star Abby Wambach, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and another equal pay champion, said there is definitely a gender pay gap in professional sports, but “it’s about every single industry in every single country.”
“It’s so near and dear to my heart,” she said, “because since retiring I’ve noticed that looking across the aisle, the Kobi Bryants, the Peyton Mannings, they’re having a much different conversation with themselves in retirement than I am.”
“I have to worry about paying my bills — and enough finally has to be enough,” Wambach said.
Iceland co-sponsored the event and Minister of Social Affairs and Equality Thorsteinn Viglundsson said he expects the country to be the first in the world to eliminate the gender pay gap by its target of 2022.
“We are really turning the table and saying to management and the institutions, you bear the responsibility, it is your task to make sure the gender pay gap is eliminated,” he said. “And the Equal Pay Standard that we are implementing is a perfect tool for it.”
Offences Against the Person Act 1861 makes a woman’s decision to terminate her own pregnancy punishable by life in prison
The ten-minute rule bill was introduced by the Labour MP for Hull North, Diana Johnson. Photograph: Josh Kearns/Rex
MPs have won the right to introduce a bill to parliament which would decriminalise abortion for the first time by repealing a law that dates back to Victorian times.
A ten-minute rule bill introduced by Diana Johnson, the Labour MP for Hull North, sought permission of the House to change two sections of a law passed in 1861, before women had the vote. It succeeded by 170 votes to 142, a margin of 32.
As the law stands, doing so is technically punishable by life imprisonment under sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act – both for the woman and for anyone, including a doctor, who helps her.
“This is the harshest criminal penalty of any country in Europe, underpinned by a Victorian criminal law passed before women had the right to vote, let alone sit in this place,” Johnson told MPs.
Poland, a traditional Catholic country, does not criminalise women for having an abortion, she said. In the United States, when the current president suggested women should be criminalised, he was forced to backtrack, she added.
Abortion is legal in England and Wales in restricted circumstances, which were laid down in the 1967 Abortion Act introduced by the then Liberal MP David Steel to stop women dying in large numbers as a result of backstreet abortions.
The 1967 legislation allows a termination before 12 weeks with the approval of two doctors and in the interests of the woman’s health. In rare circumstances, including foetal abnormality, later abortions are permitted.
The new bill will be brought forward by a cross-party group of MPs.
Johnson said in the debate that abolishing criminality need not change the current restrictions, which can be enshrined in regulations. The change in the law would not increase the number of late abortions. “It will not lead to a free for all,” she said.
The pills that bring about early abortion, before 12 weeks, are prescription only, so their use is governed by the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. It would not be any easier for couples to seek abortion for sex-selection purposes. And, she added, the current law did nothing about people who tried to coerce women into having a termination.
Abortion is widely available under the law, she argued, and the wider availability of the abortion pills online “should motivate greater concern for women’s health and make us wary of greater liberalisation of the law”. Removing the criminal sanction “would embolden men to pressure women into abortions they do not wish to have”. Ensuring that the woman must have the consent of two doctors meant that she would have the chance to speak to somebody who could help her, Caulfield said.
Watching my new colleagues calm patients disturbed by protesters, I knew this work was more important than any other job I have ever had.
On an afternoon walk with my best friend, we saw a group of people protesting near her workplace. When I asked her what was going on, she said, “That’s the Hope Clinic for Women.” I knew it was an abortion clinic; I had brought a friend there once. But I had never heard the protesters telling men and women entering the clinic they would burn in hell.
There was even a sign showing a woman lying naked on an examining table, bruised from head to toe. It hurt me to look at it. I thought, “Come on now, really! How disrespectful”—especially if you claim to be concerned about women.
So that’s when my life changed. That day, I had been out dropping off résumés and looking for a new job. I had worked as a certified nursing or medical assistant in many different settings. I knew what I wanted to do: helping and caring for people. But I was lost and unfulfilled, and hated to go to work.
I walked right through those anti-choice protesters and gave them my résumé.
Today, I am a proud abortion provider. My first day at the clinic, I knew it was where I wanted to be. All the employees introduced themselves, smiled, and asked about my family. I felt truly welcomed.
I observed and watched patients coming in. Some were physically shaking and crying, angry, or agitated from all that judgmental nonsense being screamed at them. My new co-workers calmed those same patients down with kindness and reason. I knew this was different and more important than any other job I have ever had.
Though anti-choice activists try to say that abortion providers don’t care about women, babies, or families, I consider my co-workers an extended family. When so many Americans dislike their jobs, I love coming to work every day, even on Saturdays. Seeing the most helpful, fun, and loving people every day doesn’t seem like work. We work together—not just in the same place, but collaboratively and with the greater purpose of helping women in need.
I am lucky to have been empowered by so many people in this movement, especially my colleagues in the Abortion Care Network. I was chosen for a program called Uniting Our Voices, which helps train advocates to communicate with media. This group gave me the tools and courage to step out of my box, though it didn’t feel like that at first. I knew no one at the meeting, and I was very much out of my comfort zone.
I remember telling two other people in the program that “I am just a medical assistant, I think they chose the wrong person.” I didn’t realize they were board members. They stopped me right there and said, “No, we chose you because you are a medical assistant.”
This group helped me realize I am not just a medical assistant. I am an advocate for all women. I can help our patients with my voice, but also others who have not had to make the choice to have an abortion and those who have made that choice before.
Our patients endure a tremendous amount of stress just to walk in our door. They are targeted by awful, mean anti-choice protesters. When they come into our clinic, we know something of what they are going through—and respect the choice they’ve made with family, friends, genetic counselors, physicians, or just by themselves.
I share words of support, love, and laughter with our clients. Yes, that’s possible in an abortion clinic. Actually, I think it’s essential. We try to make this long process of paperwork, counseling, and lab tests a more enjoyable experience. I can honestly say these women support me just as I support them.
I come to work knowing that abortion providers do amazing work. We don’t just perform medical services. We help many people achieve goals, follow dreams, and stay true to self. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
A new study shows that widely available contraception lowers abortion rates. (Photo: Getty Images)
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A just-released study commissioned by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and conducted by researchers at Child Trends, an independent nonprofit research organization that specializes in child health and development, found that if the full range of contraception options available to women through Planned Parenthood health centers were used by all U.S. women ages 15 to 39 who were not seeking pregnancy, the unintended-pregnancy rate would be reduced by 64 percent, the unintended-birth rate would decrease by 63 percent, and the abortion rate would drop by a staggering 67 percent.
All of this, researchers found, would translate into $12 billion in public health care cost savings annually, reducing the public costs of unintended pregnancy by half.
The findings are all the more staggering on the heels of this weeks news that the Trump administration made an informal proposal to Planned Parenthood that their place as a provider of Medicaid and Title X — the federal family planning program — services could remain intact if the reproductive and sexual health care provider would stop providing abortion care. Further complicating the issue is the Affordable Care Act (ACA) replacement bill finally introduced by House Republicans last night, which would both roll back Medicaid expansion and also cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood for a year, a one-two punch to those who rely on Planned Parenthood as a safety-net provider for their reproductive health care and family planning.
Jamila Taylor, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress (CAP) who is an expert on women’s health care policy, tells Yahoo Beauty, “If you take into account the fact that Planned Parenthood serves about 2.5 million people each year with essential health services and that many of those folks are on Medicaid or accessing services through Title X, that’s extremely problematic.”
According to Planned Parenthood, close to 60 percent of their patients participate in Medicaid or Title X.
Taylor continues, “When you consider the fact that for these same patients, Planned Parenthood often serves as the single access point for their health care, a restriction like this is only going to further disservice disadvantaged communities.”
Taylor also notes that given the fact that 70 percent of the American public believes that Roe v. Wade should be maintained and that abortion should remain safe and legal in the United States, “asking Planned Parenthood or any other provider that may be receiving federal funding to not provide this service is just placing barriers on important health care.”
She continues, “Based on the profile of what we know about the folks Planned Parenthood serves, slashing their funding from the Medicaid program in particular is going to have a harmful effect on low-income people, people of color, and LGBT young people. These are communities that disproportionately rely on essential health care through Planned Parenthood. So, when we talk about stripping their funding, this isn’t about Planned Parenthood per se, but about taking away essential health coverage to these people.
“Politically, I know everyone is honing in on Planned Parenthood, but at the end of the day, this is just going to harm the patients who need health care the most — patients who rely on Planned Parenthood,” Taylor says. “These are groups that also experience health disparities and health inequities, and any efforts to restrict their health coverage will only exacerbate their health and well-being disparities.”
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif. tells Yahoo Beauty, “While claiming to try to improve access to health care, Republicans couldn’t resist another opportunity to attack women by doing the complete opposite. Far from helping more people make their own health care choices, this bill defunds Planned Parenthood, denying millions of women access to preventative care, cancer screenings, and affordable contraception. Although abortion care is constitutionally protected, Republicans are using their opposition to it as an excuse to deny comprehensive health care to women. But this cannot just be about ideologies when lives are at stake, and we know the dangers facing women when these safe options are taken away.”
On October 4, 2016, tens of thousands of women in Poland took to the streets to protest against new legislation introduced by their far-right government that would put a total ban on abortion. Poland’s abortion laws are already incredibly restrictive: Abortion is only permitted in cases of rape and sexual abuse, if there is a threat to the mother’s life, or if there’s evidence of severe fetal anomalies. Two days following the momentous protests, the legislation was voted down 352 to 58. Women had won some of their rights back.
In the U.S., though abortion is (currently) a protected right, even more restrictions on access and threats to funding at Planned Parenthood are attempts by the new administration to roll back to a pre–Roe v. Wade era. Ahead of Wednesday’s International Women’s Strike, Polish women who participated in the Black Monday protests wrote to the Cut with their advice for how to fight for the essential reproductive rights that the government is so keen on taking away.
Aleksandra Knapik, 33, Lodz, Poland “It is important to stick together in solidarity — with other American women, as well as with women worldwide. It’s important to show that you are ready to fight for your rights, the rights that could be taken away, on all levels. To take part in street protests, online campaigns, education, political lobbying, worldwide networking. I hope that this protest will show the strength and unification of American women, and that the Trump administration won’t try to proceed bills that are reducing your laws.”
Katarzyna Pierzchala, 50, Warsaw, Poland “I was in New York for a few days once and that’s all. But I think that you are in much better situation than we are. Although your new president also has dangerous ideas, your democracy is much stronger, your law system does not allow any fanatics to deprive your rights. Or at least I hope so. I believe it’s important for you to protest. It’s necessary to show your power, to warn your government: ‘Do not even think about it.’”
Zofia Marcinek, 23, Warsaw, Poland “The United States claims to be a crib of modern democracy. Just make these white (or occasionally orange) guys in suits realize that this democracy is yours, too, and that the only people to decide about women are women themselves. Without them, there is no country and there is no freedom. Realize that — willing or not — America sets standards for more than just itself. Women and girls all over the world are fed your movies, your celebrities, your powerful women. Make brave women. And make this country great again for every girl who ever lives in it. Get angry. Get proud. Basically, do everything the conservative farts would call ‘unladylike.’”
Zuzanna Zwierzchowska, 22, Gdynia, Poland “I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer this, but the reason I’m protesting on March 8 is to not blame myself when everything crumbles. It is very important to not be idle, to fight for each other even if there is no hope, to be proud and try as hard as you can. Even if you can’t win now, you can remain a decent human being for yourself and the people close to you.”
Agnieszka Maciuszek, 20, Stary Sącz, Poland “The main motivation for this strike is to show solidarity, to show that there are many of you. Show them that you are the force that cannot be stopped so easily.”
Agnieszka Sarna, 43, Olsztyn, Poland “I couldn’t help but think after Black Monday I, women, we, women, need to be more active if the change is to happen. There are some great, well-educated, strong, brave, intelligent and successful women in the world. But as long as we do not connect with each other, this potential will be wasted. If I want future generations to [live] in peace on this planet, there is no other way, but to wake up and make women rise and unify with other women against destruction, violence, hatred, avidity, and wild competition.
I do not plan to [go] into politics, but together with my female friends we form a circle and work on a very basic level, on our own. We open up and take inspiration from global sisterhood offering what we have to those in need. Inspiring one another. Learning from each other. Supporting each other without judgment. Letting our female wisdom unfold and benefit others.
I want you to know how important for us all it is to see Americans, women of the country which was for decades an inspiration, and which is such a big country, to unify, gather, and express dissent against this expired world order. To know that the movement goes global really makes a difference. We should all continue this way and be ready for change. Nobody will labor and push change through instead of us, so let’s do it, so that the dark womb of the today’s world gives life to new better civilization, just as your filmmaker and lawyer Valarie Kaur said in one of her speeches.”
Magdalena Walczak, 26, Leszno, Poland “I feel like the only thing we can do is to let us be seen and heard. We need to be loud and united. That is the [attainable] goal, letting the authority know that we are not happy about current situation and we are ready to fight to change it.”
The money will also provide support to other health initiatives.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday that his government will spend $650 million on sexual and reproductive initiatives worldwide. That money will go in part to fighting global anti-abortion laws.
“For far too many women and girls, unsafe abortions and a lack of choices in reproductive health mean that they either are at risk of death, or simply cannot contribute and cannot achieve their potential,” Trudeau said Wednesday at an International Women’s Day event, reports Canada’s Globe and Mail. “The right of women to choose when, how [and] with whom to start a family is one that we all must fight for and defend.”
The initiative would try to reduce the estimated 22 million unsafe abortions that happen annually in countries where there’s no access to legal abortion, the paper reports. The pledge is a continuation of Trudeau’s conservative predecessor’s foreign-aid program for maternal and child health—but that plan specifically prohibited the funds from going towards abortion-relation services and less than 2 percent of its budget was allocated for contraception services.
This news comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s executive order to reinstate a federal ban known as the global gag rule on U.S. funding for international health organizations which counsel women on family planning options that include abortion. That gap in services could be filled in part by the Canadian initiative.
Trudeau was busy on International Women’s Day—when he wasn’t signing major, multi-million-dollar pledges, the self-proclaimed feminist was delivering video messages. Here, you know you want to take another watch:
And a group of experts wants you to know that federal regulatory policy is partly responsible.
Thirty-seven states currently have medication abortion restrictions on the books. Six, like Oklahoma’s outright ban on medication abortion, are temporarily or permanently enjoined by court order. Newsmakers / Getty
Texas has seen some of the nation’s most regressive abortion restrictions in recent years. This series chronicles the fall-out of those laws, and the litigation that has followed.
New year, same as the old year: Republicans in statehouses across the country followed January 2016’s 147 anti-choice bills with a record-breaking 167 anti-choice bills introduced in the first month of 2017. Among those bills is a spate of proposals aiming to limit access to medication abortion. While nearly every aspect of abortion care is threatened, the multifaceted attack on medication abortion is particularly troubling in light of last year’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) update to the label of the medication abortion drug Mifeprex, and a recent New England Journal of Medicine commentarythat explains how the update barely scratched the surface of needed changes.
The ten authors—a multidisciplinary group of clinicians, public health and legal experts, and researchers—of “Sixteen Years of Overregulation: Time to Unburden Mifeprex” detailed the ways in which the ongoing over-regulation of Mifeprex is not just unnecessary, but harmful to patients considering or seeking medication abortion.
The new label introduced a host of changes for Mifeprex use, including new dosages and an important revision that allows it to be administered later into pregnancy. These changes are expected to “reduce confusion among women, providers, and policymakers about the appropriate use of the drug,” according to the authors, who also anticipate abortion becoming “less expensive, more convenient, and more widely available.” When used with the drug misoprostol, mifepristone is a very effective and safe way to end an early pregnancy.
But the drug is still restricted through what’s called the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). These are additional rules implemented through the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) when the Food and Drug Administration suspects a drug has serious adverse effects. Mifeprex’s REMS regulations determine where, how, and by whom the medication can be prescribed and administered—despite its proven efficacy and safety. The drug cannot be sold at pharmacies and must be dispensed by a certified prescriber in a clinic, medical office, or hospital. To become “certified,” a physician must submit a form to the drug’s maker declaring that he or she can date a pregnancy, diagnose ectopic pregnancy, and provide surgical intervention if needed, either personally or by referral. All of this, of course, adds additional hurdles for the patient and provider.
“The REMS places medically unnecessary burdens on patients and providers, and keeps mifepristone [the generic name of Mifeprex] from being prescribed by clinicians and then obtained in retail or mail-order pharmacies, alongside hundreds of other medications,” said Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Projects. “The negative impact from over-regulation of medical abortion with the REMS, like other abortion restrictions, can fall hardest on poor women, rural women, women of color, undocumented women, and young women.”
Winikoff told Rewire that the growing percentage of patients who choose Mifeprex as their preferred abortion method—from 6 percent of all abortions in 2001 to 31 percent in 2014 and nearly half of those before nine weeks’ gestation—means that the REMS restrictions affect a significant number of people.
Thirty-seven states currently have medication abortion restrictions on the books. Six, like Oklahoma’s outright ban on medication abortion, are temporarily or permanently enjoined by court order. Oklahoma’s legislature is doubling down by introducing new legislation to make a violation a felony with a possible $100,000 fine and attempting to reduce the window patients have to access abortion altogether to six short weeks. Oklahoma’s fixation on medication abortion isn’t an outlier; a full 15 percent of the 288 abortion-restricting laws passed from 2011 to2015 concerned medication abortion.
Having official federal restrictions like REMS lends credibility to these legislative efforts.
“It’s unconscionable that the REMS restrictions remain after 16 years of data showing mifepristone is an exceedingly safe and effective abortion method,” said Winikoff. “The restrictions on mifepristone are a shameful example of regulation run amok—and they’re harming women’s health. Women and their health providers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get a medication that’s been safely and effectively used in this country for a decade and a half.”
The commentary’s authors also point out the contradictions between the purpose of REMS (public safety) and unnecessary regulations. For example, there’s no risk of overdose when each patient only receives a single dose of Mifeprex. Also, even if there was a high rate of complication (mifepristone is less risky than over-the-counter pain relievers like Tylenol), requiring the medication to be taken in a doctor’s office wouldn’t prevent infection or bleeding.
They wrote:
“[T]he pharmacologic effects do not begin for hours after ingestion. If a serious complication were to occur, the location where the woman had obtained the tablets would be entirely irrelevant to her clinical outcome. In fact, recent research has shown that allowing each woman who has a medical abortion to take the mifepristone in the place of her choosing is safe and is preferred by many women.”
They also outlined other potential harm caused by requiring dispensing providers to have special certification. Being certified means creating a public record as an official abortion provider; the risk of harassment and threat can understandably discourage Mifeprex provision.
The hoops created by REMS are especially burdensome in rural America. For physicians outside urban settings, there is a greater risk of not being able to treat an unexpected patient because they are not certified and therefore are unable to stock the medication ahead of time—and being unable to refer a patient to another health-care provider. Where clinics have closed en masse, distances to the nearest provider can be hundreds of miles, and the availability and legality of telemedicine can’t be guaranteed due to legislative attacks. For example, the Utah Telehealth Amendments (HB 154) bill that just passed the state house would make medication abortion by telemedicine illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the patient.
Cristina Aguilar, executive director of the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR), told Rewire about the importance of medication abortion in her state.
“In a rural state like Colorado, health care can be difficult for people to obtain,” she said. “Medication abortion is an option that many providers offer to expand access, including in smaller clinics outside of urban areas.”
In addition to attempting to put it literally out of reach, legislators are still advancing bills requiring doctors to tell their patients that medication abortion can be reversed—which is scientifically incorrect. Lawmakers in Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, and Utah have introduced “abortion reversal” bills like the ones in place in Arkansas and South Dakota (and successfully challenged in Arizona last year).
Aguilar connected “abortion reversal” with the history of medical experiments performed on marginalized communities.
“Looking at the so-called research on the idea of reversing medication abortion shows that this is a refuted theory based on the anecdotal experiences of physicians who were willing to do experimental treatment on pregnant women, without the usual research safeguards to protect their health and safety. Women of color have seen this before,” she said. “There is a long history of women of color being coerced and abused within the scientific and medical profession.”
SisterSong Executive Director Monica Simpson told Rewire that requiring doctors to lie to patients is bad medicine and a violation of trust.
“When women make a decision to have an abortion, they are clear about their decision and it should be respected. It’s cruel to tell women something that undermines their decision and isn’t even backed up by science.”
Simpson also echoed Winikoff’s concerns about who is most affected by these restrictions.
“When medication abortion is restricted, the most marginalized communities are most affected, those who are oppressed by systemic and historical barriers, including low-income folks, people of color, Black women, undocumented folks, young people,” said Simpson, stressing that abortion is an important part of reproductive health care in her community.
The experts cited social justice concerns like Simpson’s, agreeing that decisions on when and whether to parent should be left to the patient and the medical community’s best practices and that medication abortion restrictions impose harm. In their article, they said that the REMS requirements to “assure safe use plainly impede women’s access to the drug …. Considering the severe shortage of abortion providers in many parts of the United States and the long distances that many women must travel to obtain abortion services, we contend that any barrier to access that has no demonstrated benefit is excessive.”
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