Pro-life activists at the US Supreme Court on March 26, 2024. (Photo by Drew Ungerer/AFP via Getty Images)
As a woman left alone and unaccompanied by the wounds of a chemical abortion, I wonder if the Food and Drug Administration Avoiding accountability Last month, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court for disregarding women’s health, but I’m happy to see that the case isn’t over yet.
Three states are ready to hold the FDA accountable, and that’s a good thing, because countless women have been harmed by the FDA’s callously eliminating original protections for women using chemical abortions.
For now, the FDA continues to prioritize the profits of the abortion pill industry over women’s health, even though abortion pill labels state that approximately 1 in 25 women who use the pill end up in the emergency room. The FDA continues to refuse to ensure that women have access to ongoing in-person medical care from a physician while taking the abortion pill, even though data the FDA cites shows that the lack of in-person physician care increases hospitalizations by 300%.
But women are more important than political agendas and pharmaceutical company coffers: they have a right to excellent health care and to direct medical care when taking risky medications.
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The FDA needs to restore at least basic in-person doctor visits to ensure women don’t end up with ectopic pregnancies, heavy bleeding or other life-threatening symptoms when taking chemical abortion pills.
Unfortunately, due to a legal technicality, the Supreme Court has refused to hear the merits of the lawsuit that sought to hold the FDA accountable for ignoring women’s health, but that may change in the future.
Regardless of one’s personal views on abortion, women’s safety, health and well-being are important. We should all agree that our daughters, mothers and sisters should not be forced to take these high-risk drugs alone on cold bathroom floors or in dorm rooms. Women should unite to denounce the hypocrisy of the FDA’s claims to care about women and demand change.
We know this firsthand as we have undergone a chemical abortion alone, bled to death, and held a tiny, lifeless baby in our arms, not knowing what to do.
In the case FDA v. Hippocratic Medical Union, lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom represented four doctors and four medical associations who sought to restore protections for women, and while the FDA has shirked responsibility, we know that the FDA’s reckless actions cannot be ignored forever. Women across this country should come together and stand up for other women because women’s health matters.
And federal agencies are not above the law. If any other agency had such reckless disregard for our health and well-being in a non-abortion situation, there would be an uproar. But in this situation, people are afraid, so women suffer while pharmaceutical companies continue to profit financially in the name of celebrating and promoting women’s health.
Stop messing around.
As a woman suffered severe physical and mental harm At a time when more women are taking chemical abortion pills on their own without seeking medical attention to check for heavy bleeding or life-threatening infections, we don’t want other women to suffer because of the FDA’s current policy.
>>> Judges rule plaintiffs have no right to challenge FDA’s promotion of dangerous abortion pills
A few years ago, abortion clinic staff assured me that the abortion pill was a “safe and easy way” to end the life of a child my boyfriend didn’t want me to have. I’d just take two pills, I wouldn’t have to call in the morning, and I’d barely feel a thing, they promised.
In fact, I was in blinding pain, bleeding profusely, standing over the toilet in my bathroom, clutching the amniotic sac and gazing at the fingers and eyes of my unborn baby, and then as I flushed it down the toilet, an entirely different kind of pain filled my mind and memory.
The pain and bleeding continued for more than a month, but the doctor at the clinic never called to ask how I was doing or to schedule a follow-up appointment, and no one warned me about the lifelong effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
So while I was surprised to hear a Supreme Court Justice say that emergency room doctors who have seen case after case like mine firsthand have no right to question the FDA’s practices, I’m grateful that Missouri, Kansas and Idaho are stepping up to defend women’s health and continue to demand that the FDA do its job.
But I hope these states are not alone. I hope women from all political and ideological perspectives can come together to force the FDA to do better and put our health first. The FDA should figure out why it’s okay to roll back common sense safety standards and allow us to perform abortions at home, and why it thinks we’re not important enough to ensure doctors provide care for us.
When we believed the clinics that told us the lie that these medications were easy and nearly painless, we may not have felt like we had a say. But now we have a say, and we should use it.
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