By Mary Szoch
Since the landmark Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration has been scrambling to find new ways of ensuring laws cannot protect unborn children. At the top of their list is chemical abortion — a pill regimen of mifepristone (distributed under the brand name Mifeprex®) and misoprostol.
Chemical abortion is carried out through the use of drugs often sent through the mail. It poses significant safety concerns for the mother. However, President Biden doesn’t seem to care, as the White House’s response to the Dobbs ruling stated, “In the face of threats from state officials saying they will try to ban or severely restrict access to medication for reproductive health care, the president directed the secretary of Health and Human Services to identify all ways to ensure that mifepristone is as widely accessible as possible in light of the FDA’s determination that the drug is safe and effective — including when prescribed through telehealth and sent by mail.”
The Department of Justice, (DOJ) issued a concurrent statement indicating that, “States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.”
The Biden administration has once again proven its commitment to the abortion industry over the safety of women.
Although the Biden administration wants women to believe chemical abortion is some sort of magical wand that simply dissolves pregnancy, it is important to know what chemical abortion drugs do. Mifepristone starves the child. Misoprostol causes the woman’s body to expel the unborn child. In other words, misoprostol is the chemical coat hanger. And like a metal coat hanger, it is dangerous.
Women undergoing chemical abortion are four times more likely to suffer severe complications as those who had undergone surgical abortions — 20 percent compared to 5.6 percent. The two side effects more prevalent during chemical abortions than surgical abortions are hemorrhage and incomplete abortion.
For the vast majority of women, it is impossible to tell the difference between life-threatening complications of chemical abortion and signs that “the treatment is working.” The Mifeprex medication guide reads, “Cramping and vaginal bleeding are expected with this treatment. Usually, these symptoms mean that the treatment is working … Bleeding or spotting can be expected for an average of 9 to 16 days and may last for up to 30 days … You may see blood clots and tissue. This is an expected part of passing the pregnancy.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the pro-abortion industry worked to remove the in-person dispensing requirement for chemical abortion, allowing these dangerous drugs to be sent through the mail without an in-person examination by a doctor. On December 16, 2021, the Biden administration granted their request making these lethal drugs even more dangerous.
Notably, the deadly combination of mifepristone and misoprostol is more dangerous for the woman as the gestational age of the unborn child increases — with incomplete abortion occurring up to 10 percent of the time and increasing as gestational age increases. Because of safety concerns, the FDA has only approved the use of mifepristone for 70 days; however, pro-abortionist activists around the country are already advising women to take chemical abortion pills beyond this point.
It is important to know who the target is for chemical abortion at later gestational ages, as these women will be in greater need of emergency medical assistance.
According to Guttmacher, “Women with less education, black women, and women who had experienced multiple disruptive life events (such as unemployment or separation from a partner) in the past year were more likely than others to have had an abortion at or beyond 13 weeks’ gestation.”
In other words, poor minority women who have less access to real health care are more likely than others to have later surgical abortions.
It seems likely that it is this same group of women who will undergo later chemical abortions “sent by mail,” without ever seeing a doctor who is able to assess whether the chemical abortion will pose a grave risk to the woman’s physical health.
Conveniently for pro-abortionists, in 2016, the FDA stopped requiring distributors of chemical abortion to report any adverse events other than death. (Currently, only six states require adverse event reporting: Arkansas, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.) This means that countless women have hemorrhaged or needed hysterectomies that have gone completely unreported.
As the Biden administration and pro-abortionists around the country continue to promote the mailing of the chemical coat hanger to women who have not even seen a doctor, the number of unreported complications from chemical abortion will rise, leaving countless dead children and maimed women in its wake.
At some point, when it is expedient for the abortion industry, there will be a sudden influx of “complication reporting.” This reporting will be used to spread the narrative that laws protecting life in the womb make abortion unsafe for women — especially poor minorities — when really, it is the act of abortion itself (especially chemical abortion) that is unsafe for women (and obviously their children).
For 49 years, the pro-abortion industry has exploited women to make money. With the overturning of Roe, President Biden has joined pro-abortionists in finding new ways to double their efforts.
