The Left and Democrats claim they don't know what a woman is, but they know what one is well enough to send her abortion pills through the mail. After years of seemingly being unable to come up with a definition for the fairer sex, the Left has now decided they are the end-all, be-all authority on what life-ending, life-changing medication is safe to send through the mail without a doctor consultation.
On May 4th, Justice Samuel Alito issued an administrative stay pausing a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that would have reinstated in-person physician requirements for abortion medications like mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone and misoprostol are the two pills used in a chemical abortion. They are powerful drugs that jeopardize the life of every unborn human exposed to them and carry documented serious risks for the woman taking them.
There is a widely believed myth that when the 1970s Roe v. Wade decision was overturned by the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs, abortion largely stopped in America. It did not. There are more abortions now than ever before. In fact, every 28 seconds an abortion happens in America, largely due to the widespread availability of abortion pills.
The question now before the Court is not simply about access, but whether abortion pills should continue to be treated as routine telehealth care or whether its risks require the same in-person medical oversight traditionally applied to high-risk drugs.
The state of Louisiana, which outlawed abortions entirely, has sued the Food and Drug Administration because mail access to Mifepristone allows abortions to continue in the state outside the boundaries of its laws. The case has drawn intervention not only from states challenging federal policy, but also from the drug manufacturers themselves: GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, who are urging the Court to preserve expanded access. In other words, the push to maintain broad mail-order availability is being led not by medical organizations or physicians, but by the manufacturers of the drugs themselves.
A few months ago, during the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing “Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician and chairman of the committee, opened the floor by reminding the room that a physician’s duty is to care for their patient. When someone is pregnant, there are two patients. That reality is both scientific and moral, no matter how uncomfortable it makes lawmakers.
The case before the Supreme Court concerns not only unborn children, but also safety for women being told that chemical abortion is as casual as taking ibuprofen. It isn't. One in ten women experiences serious adverse effects from abortion pills, including hemorrhaging and sepsis. An in-person evaluation is necessary to rule out ectopic pregnancy and ensure proper gestational dating and patient safety.
Without physician involvement, there is no guarantee the pregnancy is within the FDA-approved ten-week window, no confirmation that the abortion is complete, and no accountability when something goes wrong. These are not hypotheticals. Women have died because of this.
Senator Bernie Sanders dismissed the January hearing as an attempt to control women’s bodies. Senator Chris Murphy compared abortion pills to drugs like Viagra, citing FDA approval of Misoprostol 25 years ago. What he left out is that the FDA approved the drug under the assumption that a physician would be involved in the process. That safeguard is precisely what has been removed.
Seventy-one percent of Americans, including 67 percent of those who are in favor of abortion, believe a woman should meet with a doctor before receiving an abortion pill. One need only look at the normalization of birth control to see how quickly pharmaceutical risks can become culturally minimized once access is framed as empowerment, despite extensive lists of side effects. Misoprostol carries a black box warning, the FDA’s strongest caution, reserved for drugs with serious or life-threatening risks, including infection and hemorrhage. Yet many websites prescribing abortion pills fail to mention it at all, asking only for a form, payment, and an address.
Speaking in a congressional inquiry, Dr. Nisha Verma, a double board-certified OB-GYN and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, argued that the abortion pill is safe and that women should be able to take it at home. However, when asked by lawmakers repeatedly whether biological men can get pregnant, she would not give a clear answer.
She has also claimed that states like Louisiana prevent doctors from using misoprostol to treat miscarriages or postpartum hemorrhage. According to the Louisiana Department of Health, that assertion is false. The law allows physicians to use these drugs in hospitals for legitimate medical purposes outside of elective abortion. Treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriage has never been equivalent to elective abortion procedures, despite the pro-abortion side grasping at straws to defend its position.
In 2016, the Obama administration stopped requiring reports of non-fatal complications from abortion drugs. If we only track death, we miss women rushed to emergency rooms with infections, incomplete abortions, and uncontrolled bleeding. In-person medical visits also provide safeguards that cannot be replicated through mail-order prescribing, including screening for coercion, abuse, and trafficking—situations where medical professionals may be a woman’s only point of intervention. Studies have also suggested these drugs may increase the risk of preterm birth in future pregnancies.
This is not an argument about banning abortion pills outright. The plea is far more modest: abortion drugs should be prescribed by a physician who understands their risks, confirms gestational age, and is accountable to the patients in front of them.
It is malpractice to prescribe antibiotics through a cursory telehealth call. Yet abortion pills, which are meant to end a human life and carry serious medical risks, are treated with fewer safeguards. A policy that removes doctors from medicine does not empower women or expand care. It abandons them and removes accountability.
