The Trump administration has a chance to repair some of the damage it has done with pro-life supporters after the announcement of its pro-IVF policy. A new survey by McLaughlin and Associates released this week finds that “7 in 10 likely voters — including 57% of liberal voters — approve of requiring a doctor visit to receive a prescription for abortion drugs.” Similarly, the survey found that seven in ten voters agree that it “makes sense” to bring back safeguards removed by former President Joe Biden’s FDA.
A majority of respondents identified as pro-choice but still expressed skepticism about a Biden-era policy that allows mail-order abortion drugs. The Biden-era policy of removing an in-person encounter with a doctor before obtaining abortion drugs was implemented in the name of expanding abortion access. The logic of it, though, runs counter to the progressive narrative that women are constantly in danger of being exploited and abused by men. Doctors are taught to look for and actively screen for signs of coercion or abuse before prescribing abortion drugs.
Women in distressed situations are more likely than doctors to misjudge the gestational age of their pregnancy. They may mis-prescribe themselves drugs that interact with other medications or existing conditions, and, when they do so via mail-order or internet pharmacies, they may not know where to go or whom to call in case of complications.
Stories of women dying or suffering extreme medical complications because they tried to hide either their pregnancy or abortion from those around them are proliferating. Holly Patterson, aged 18, sought an abortion via drugs at Planned Parenthood, finishing up the regimen at home. She went to the hospital with severe cramps and bleeding and was prescribed painkillers. Days later, she died of septic shock because her body was unable to expel all of the remains of the unborn child, which caused an infection.
It is not pro-life or pro-choice to encourage women to suffer fear and medical complications in isolation. Since the end of Roe v. Wade, many states have chosen to codify abortion rights. But Biden’s FDA, in the name of abortion access and normalization, instituted a policy of negligently looking away from women who may be in medical or social distress. In so doing, it discarded a policy that had stood for nearly all of Barack Obama’s presidency and all of Trump’s first term.
We remain committed to policies that protect all human life, born and unborn, and a society that protects pregnant women in distress. Reinstating a mandatory doctor’s visit for women obtaining abortion drugs is the least we can do.