The Food and Drug Administration has temporarily lifted a medical abortion ban that requires abortion pills to be given to women in person or inside doctor's offices. The lifting of the ban will now enable sending abortion pills by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FDA's latest resolution reverses a Trump administration policy and gives abortion rights groups another major win under the Biden administration.
According to the Christian Post, the FDA issued a letter on Monday signed by Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs Dr. Janet Woodcock, which addressed the concerns of two doctors who claimed that it was dangerous for women to comply with the in-person dispensing requirements of abortion pills during the COVID-19 pandemic, recognized as a public health emergency.
These in-person dispensing requirements are part of the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, which were put in place to protect women from any adverse effects the abortion pill, specifically called mifepristone, may have.
Woodcock also shed light on the evaluation of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research into the "studies pertinent to the in-person dispensing requirement in the Mifepristone REMS program during the COVID-19 pandemic." She said that based on the evaluation, the FDA did not find any significant "increases in serious safety concerns" when women are allowed to take abortion pills by mail or without first visiting a doctor's office.
According to ABC News, the use of mifepristone has ben allowed since 2000 and that up to 40 of all abortions in the country are in fact done through medication instead of surgery, an option that has become key during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic broke out last year, the FDA temporarily suspended in-person requirements for all medications, including "tightly controlled drugs such as methadone."
Since then, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which then sided with the former president to reinstate the rule that requires women to access the drug in person and not by mail.
Unsurprisingly, the FDA under the Biden administration backtracked this rule. The abortion pill can now be done "through the mail either by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber, or through a mail-order pharmacy when such dispensing is done under the supervision of a certified prescriber."
Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser was one of the first pro-life advocates to condemn FDA's new ruling, expressing their concern over sending abortion pills by mail. Dannenfelser accused the Biden-Harris administration of exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic, cashing on in abortion industry profits, and disregarding the health and safety of American women.
National Right to Life president Carol Tobias also condemned FDA's move to allow sending abortion pills by mail during the pandemic. She said that telemedicine abortions and abortions by mail enable women to "self-abort at home," which she believes increases women's risk because they may not be able to recognize any signs of an "incomplete abortion, a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, or a deadly infection" in case it occurs.
Tobias argued that not only does abortion pills by mail make it more dangerous for women, it also makes the process "easier and cheaper" for the abortion industry
