The Biden administration endangered and harmed thousands of women by canceling the requirement to visit a doctor in person before having the dangerous abortion pill prescribed or dispensed, new research has found.
The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) released research on March 10 showing the Biden administration’s relaxing of the “in-person dispensing requirement” increased the rate of serious adverse events from 10.15% to 11.50%. This is a “statistically significant difference of 1.35 percentage points and an increase of 13%,” the EPPC notes.
The report was written by EPPC President Ryan T. Anderson and Director of Data Analysis Jamie Bryan Hall.
“Without requiring an in-person doctor visit, anyone can go online and get mail-order abortion pills,” said Anderson, adding,
There is no way to ensure that the unborn baby hasn’t grown so large that chemical abortion is unsafe for the mother, no way to ensure that the unborn baby isn’t implanted outside of the uterus where using chemical abortion drugs could prove deadly to the mother, and no way to ensure that it’s the mother who is voluntarily requesting the chemical abortion drugs and not a boyfriend seeking the pills to secretly and coercively poison her.
Tragically, exactly that happened in the case of Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman coerced into taking abortion drugs by her boyfriend, who obtained them from a doctor in California via mail.
The Biden administration suspended the “in-person dispensing requirement” in 2021, making the change permanent in 2023. The requirement had been in effect since 2000, when the FDA first approved mifepristone, mandating the drug – the first in the two-drug abortion regimen – be dispensed and administered only in a clinic, medical office or hospital.
The 2021 changed allowed the drug to be obtained through the mail – allowing women to abort their baby without every talking to another person – rather than from a licensed physician in an office setting.
Credit: EPPC
The new findings follow the EPPC’s release of a study last year finding the rate of serious adverse events from the abortion pill is far higher than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had previously acknowledged.
According to that study, “nearly 11% of all women who abort their child with mifepristone suffer from life-threatening conditions, including sepsis, infection or hemorrhaging” – a rate 22 times higher than the FDA had claimed.
The FDA is currently reviewing the abortion pill’s safety profile at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s direction. Pro-life supporters, however, have raised concerns that the study is being delayed.
The EPPC’s latest findings provide new urgency for the FDA to crack down on the abortion pill and reinstate its safety guardrails – if not outright ban mifepristone – to protect women.
“Making America Healthy Again” demands nothing less.
At Focus on the Family, we have been working to turn the cultural tide and save mothers and babies from abortion for years. Since beginning the Option Ultrasound Program in 2004, Focus has helped save over half a million lives. Just $60 will help save a life through Option Ultrasound. Will you partner with us to save lives from abortion?
If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, you can visit My Choice Network.
Related articles and resources:
Dealing With Unplanned Pregnancy
Become an Option Ultrasound Life Advocate
New Insights on the Dangers of the Abortion Pill
Overcoming Abortion and Becoming a Force for Life
Photo from Getty Images.
