The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday moved to permanently lift a restriction barring patients from receiving abortion pills by mail.
The decision will allow mifepristone, an FDA-approved drug used in conjunction with a second pill called misoprostol, to be prescribed through telehealth consultations and mailed directly to patients, eliminating a requirement stipulating that the pills be picked up at a hospital, clinic or medical office.
A judge granted a request from medical groups to suspend the in-person dispensing requirement due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020 but the Supreme Court in January moved to restore the rule.
The Biden administration again waived enforcement of the in-person requirement in April amid challenges and then launched a scientific review to determine whether the restrictions should be permanently lifted, with a deadline for a decision set for Thursday.
Writing to a medical group that had sued over the rule, the FDA said it was dropping the in-person requirement “to minimize the burden on the healthcare delivery system” and “to ensure that the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks.”
No effective date for the change was immediately given.
The FDA approved medication abortions up to 10 weeks’ gestation in 2000 but imposed strict restrictions, requiring that the first pill be picked up in-person at specifically certified providers who mist sign an agreement and obtain the patient’s signature on a form acknolwedging the provider informed them about the drug.
Despite the in-person requirement to obtain the pill, patients were permitted to take the drug at home.
Abortion rights advocates praised the FDA’s decision to lift the long-running restriction, as the Supreme Court weighs potential rollbacks to federal abortion laws.
“With Roe vs. Wade hanging by a thread, it is especially urgent that the federal government do everything in its power to expand access to this medication,” Julia Kaye, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said, adding the change “will allow many patients to access care earlier with fewer burdens and costs.”
Anti-abortion groups, however, panned the decision.
“The further along in the pregnancy that you use the pills, the greater the complications, the greater the failure rate and then the greater opportunity to get infected or end up in the emergency room,” Susan Liebel, state director for the Susan B. Anthony List, said.
This year six states banned the mailing of pills, seven passed laws requiring pills be obtained in person from a provider and four passed laws to set the limit on medication abortion at earlier than 10 weeks’ gestation, Elizabeth Nash, the interim associate director of state issues for the Guttmacher Institute, told The New York Times.
Conversely, states such as California and New York are expected to take steps to expand the availability of pills by mail and provide opportunities for patients in states with restrictions to travel to their states to obtain them.
Copyright 2021 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday moved to permanently lift a restriction barring patients from receiving abortion pills by mail.” Citing The Kevorkian Democrat Rules of the road to hell now paved by the Biden administration’s usual unmasked bad intentions. Socially aborting innocent American life in the womb is visibly becoming the prelude to aborting innocent law-abiding American citizens on the streets, culminating in the woke Obama community organized generation of destroyed morality reaching full maturity after a few more stolen elections. More and more these Government administrations designed to protect American life are being Biden morphed into life agents used to destroy it. Apparently the Democrat party game plan for the death of the American Republic that began with Postal altered stolen mail-in ballots will be preceded and then sealed by death of American innocence via mail-in abortifacients. Have you got your democrat love letter yet today? Their love always ends in having to say you’re sorry you embraced a evil force that saps the life out of everything it comes in contact with.
You got that right inluminatuo… it’s win win for evil… these demons know that the majority of American citizens that will use this obscene service will be corrupted middle class conservatives who feel due to over taxation can’t afford children.. thus creating less conservatives. The majority of lower class will give birth in order to receive more Gubment money… creating more demonic Regressive Liberal Socialist Democrat voters. WIN WIN!
IT certainly LOOKS like a ‘win-win’ for the demon-rats.
Mr Biden has remarked that this coming Winter will be a time of suffering and death for the unvaccinated. While that is a fear tactic in regards to COVID. it will be a reality for the unborn—for this Winter and all future seasons. Being given a chance at Life is becoming a Selective Service of sorts with oversight by the government. The sanctity of Life meets the kiss of death.
So, the USPS will confiscate legally obtained prescriptions of hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin that are mailed to help treat Covid19, but abortion pills are just fine with them. This country has completely lost its moral compass.
Hell, my brother who’s living in assisted living centers now, used to live in a shelter after he had part of his foot amputated. ONE OF THOSE who lived there, was getting generic pharmasy stuff from canada for an issue he has, which costs him (EVEN WITH shipping), 40% of what it would cost, IF HE BOUGHT IT HERE.. TILL Apr this year, when the postal service, said he could NO longer get that stuff shipped.. BY order of the feds.
SO WHY IF other drugs, LEGAL ONES
Pills mailed to people so they can murder human life. Isn’t the FDA a great government agency, complicit in the murder of human beings?
To fully advance the Demonic, Lying Socialist Democrat Party’s destructive agendas; dividing our citizens with hate and promote; rioting, burning, looting, open borders, gun control, radical feminism, abortion-on-demand, the LGBTQ lifestyle, unfettered sexual identity, transgender “gay marriage” and the like, the pagan Liberal left Democrats must do away with our Constitution, GOD, common sense, morality, Christian values and free religious exercise altogether.
Under the guise of “anti-discrimination.”
FDA shall hence forth be required to change their name, to
FEDERAL DEVIL ADVOCATES!
Murder by Mail. Never would I have thought to see this in my life time. What have we digressed to, animals? Abortion by Mail, what could go wrong?????
If there is any avenue left open for “this” government to use for satans purposes you can be 100% assured they will use it. Be it killing innocent babies to stealing from Americans to give to illegals you are guaranteed joe and his rogues will utilize it.