Can you really champion women’s rights if you can’t identify the defining, immutable characteristics of a woman? We’re not the first to ask that, and we won’t be the last. But a recent Senate committee hearing, led by Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA), put the question in a tragic new context – that of abusive men forcing abortion drugs on pregnant women.
Chairman Cassidy’s opening statement powerfully outlined the problem of life-ending drugs, easily obtained through the mail since the Biden administration removed longstanding safeguards like in-person doctor visits:
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Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is suing the FDA for allowing mail-order abortion drugs – together with Rosalie Markezich, a survivor of abortion drug coercion – has demanded the extradition of an abortionist shipping drugs into her state from California, which Governor Gavin Newsom is refusing to do. As a key Republican witness in the hearing, Murrill directly called out Democrats for using dangerous drugs as their plan to circumvent pro-life laws after Dobbs and stripping human contact – including in-person doctor visits – out of the process:
Also testifying was Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, a board-certified, practicing ob-gyn of more than 30 years, who told the committee of the case of a 16-year-old girl who developed sepsis after being given abortion drugs by a teacher “who then skipped town”:
Additionally, Murrill told Sen. Cassidy she is aware of at least two cases where women ended up in the emergency room, having taken abortion drugs at approximately 20 weeks’ gestation – five months, or twice the FDA-approved time limit, a point when it is significantly more dangerous:
In a moment that went viral, the Democrats’ witness Dr. Nisha Verma – a Planned Parenthood abortionist who boasts of her efforts to “improve access to abortion in the U.S. Southeast” – had great difficulty answering yes-or-no questions from Senators Ashley Moody (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) about whether men can be pregnant:
As of publication time, Verma’s profile on the website of Atlanta, Georgia-based Emory Healthcare is “unavailable.”
If men cannot get pregnant, why in the world is it possible for them to order abortion drugs online? The Washington Examiner’s Gabrielle Etzel has the answer: To pressure their partners.
Murrill cited real cases of coercion in Louisiana, and Dr. Wubbenhorst emphasized the importance of being able to speak with a patient face to face:
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), an ob-gyn himself who has delivered thousands of babies, exposed the dangerous irresponsibility of dispensing abortion drugs over the internet without an ultrasound. This was confirmed by Dr. Wubbenhorst, who pointed out even pro-abortion groups admit not performing an ultrasound is substandard “care”:
Senator Jim Banks (R-IN) highlighted mifepristone’s black box label, the FDA’s strongest warning regarding potentially serious or fatal side effects: “Do you think that any drug with a black box warning should be prescribed online?”
In her reply, Wubbenhorst pre-empted one of the ultimate goals of the abortion movement: “Never, and it should not be prescribed over the counter either.” In the course of the hearing, she also firmly debunked one of the abortion lobby’s favorite falsehoods, that abortion drugs are safer than common over-the-counter medications: “Most problems with Tylenol are associated with accidental or deliberate overdose. Mifepristone side effects are associated with routine prescribed use.”
Senator John Husted, the junior senator from Ohio, reflected on his own adoption and questioned whether he’d be alive today if abortion drugs had been so easy to obtain:
In response to Husted’s poignant personal testimony, Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Jersey dismissed the entire hearing as “gaslighting” and the real-life stories of women being poisoned and coerced as an ancient phenomenon having no connection to the reckless Covid-era policies of the Biden administration:
In related news, the pro-life group 40 Days for Life – known for holding vigils outside abortion facilities across America – has created a new “Abortion Pill Scumbags” map tracking incidents of this abuse. The group’s CEO Shawn Carney tells the New York Post, since the Biden administration took advantage of Covid to deregulate abortion drugs, “We’ve had men sprinkling abortion pills over blueberry pancakes. We’ve seen them put them in smoothies.”
SBA Pro-Life America’s Kelsey Pritchard agrees:
[The Biden administration] created today’s nationwide public health crisis” with the unprecedented (in this country at least), reckless decision to allow mail-order abortion drugs. “Women are being left alone to manage their own abortions which has resulted in hemorrhaging and life-threatening complications. And we’re seeing abusers exploit the system.
Abortion giant Planned Parenthood’s response, attempting to create false equivalency between democratically enacted laws protecting women and children and lawless abusers who coerce and inflict violence on them, says a lot about the pro-abortion Left’s reliance on stale talking points fearmongering about “abortion bans” (even as states with more liberal abortion laws see a predictable wave of abortion tourism). Yet even Planned Parenthood could not deny coercion to abort is wrong, even while they turn a blind eye in practice.
Democrats are clearly on the defensive when confronted with the evidence of a worsening abortion drug coercion epidemic, desperate to change the subject to practically anything else – from vaccines to the Epstein Files.
That’s a sign Republicans should press forward confidently in calling out hollow pro-abortion rhetoric on choice, bodily autonomy, and standing up for women.
