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November 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) –Despite losing seats in the House and failing to retake the Senate, progressives are hoping that a Biden administration can retake lost ground and conquer new territory even if the Equality Act and court-packing are off the table (although that could change if the Democrats win the Georgia runoff races.) As I noted last week, the Human Rights Campaign has already presented Biden with a department-by-department plan for integrating the LGBT agenda throughout the entire federal government, transforming both domestic and international policy — replete with a request that a Biden administration target Christian institutions by denying them accreditation.

Austin Ruse of C-Fam, a pro-life and pro-family organization working at the United Nations to stymie the agenda of abortion activists, has also stated that a Biden presidency will “destroy all our work.” For starters, Ruse noted in an email blast, Biden will eliminate the Mexico City Policy so American taxpayer dollars can start flowing into the coffers of the international abortion industry; refund the UN Population Fund; start pushing for pro-abortion language in international documents; appoint radical pro-abortion and pro-LGBT negotiators to the UN; and demand that poor countries accept his radical anti-life and anti-family agenda. On my podcast this month, Polish philosopher and MEP Ryszard Legutko echoed Ruse’s concerns.

Abortion activists have been increasingly frustrated by the fact that much of their agenda appears to be limited, if not impossible, by the fact that the predicted blue wave never came and by Amy Coney Barrett’s last-minute confirmation to the Supreme Court. While Trump’s executive orders defunding Planned Parenthood and other pro-life and pro-family actions can be reversed by countervailing executive orders, he can also deliver the abortion industry another tremendous victory that would “expand reproductive rights further than ever before.” 

In The Atlantic, Greer Donley, an assistant professor of Law at the University Pittsburgh Law School, suggested that Biden could “re-examine an FDA policy that places severe restrictions on mifepristone (also known as RU-486) — the only drug the FDA has approved to … effectively terminate an early pregnancy (one within its first 10 weeks). Removing this policy would expand access to abortion in most states, even if the central holding from Roe v. Wade is limited or overturned and states are allowed to navigate their own course on abortion.”

While RU-486 was approved by the FDA 20 years ago, abortion activists hoped it would become widely available everywhere and revolutionize access to feticide. Instead, while the abortion pill accounts for 39 percent of abortions according to some research, a number of laws have made the dangerous pills more difficult to access (Live Action’s devastating 85-page report “Abortion Pill Exposed,” released earlier this year, is a shocking and eye-opening look at the impact of this poison.) According to Donley, Biden could make RU-486 widely available by simply eliminating the requirement that only certified providers at a clinic, doctor’s office, or hospital dispense the drugs as well as the stipulation that women sign a patient-agreement form that indicates they have received counseling detailing the risks.

These requirements, Donley says, have made RU-486 difficult to access, as many abortionists do not provide RU-486. These restrictions are already being challenged in court, but Donley believes that Biden could effectively do an end run around the legal system:

But the REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies) can be removed much more easily without the courts. The FDA could ask the drug distributor, which sponsored the FDA’s review of the drug, to submit a modification request that would allow the agency to evaluate whether the REMS can be safely released. The sponsor could also submit a request of its own volition to force the FDA to reconsider the REMS. After a scientific review, an objective FDA would almost certainly conclude that the scientific evidence shows that the REMS is unnecessary. A new FDA commissioner, appointed by Biden, could start the process immediately. Though a decision to remove the mifepristone REMS would likely be challenged in the courts, a plaintiff would be hard-pressed to prove that the FDA — a scientific agency — acted improperly by listening to scientists.

The result: a win for reproductive rights that is not dependent on the Supreme Court or Congress. Removing the mifepristone REMS might not expand abortion access everywhere — especially not in the 19 states that have their own limits on the drug’s distribution (or other states that might pass similar statutes). But it would widen access in the remaining 31 states, ensuring, for instance, that medication abortion would be available to women through telemedicine, obviating the need to go to a clinic. Patients would still have to obtain a medication-abortion prescription, but without the REMS, any provider could prescribe it (so long as they follow state abortion laws) and patients could pick it up from their regular pharmacy. The political risks for Biden would be low, given that most Americans support the right to first-trimester abortion and that expanding its accessibility should reduce the need for second-trimester abortions, which are more controversial. This action would also give him an opportunity to reassure the women in his base that he is fighting for their interests, especially in light of the losses many are expecting in the Court with Justice Barrett’s confirmation.

If the Democrats are unable to pursue the radical agenda they had planned — such as the Equality Act and expanding the Supreme Court — we will start to see them take a more creative approach to expanding abortion access and ramrodding their agenda through. This proposal is by far the most dangerous, as it could spike the abortion rate after decades of steady decline and undo years worth of legislative progress on the pro-life front by making abortion widely available outside of abortion clinics and hospitals. Pro-lifers have successfully erected legal barriers to protect women and children, but a policy change like this one could circumvent all of that.

Elections have consequences. Often, those consequences are lethal for the weakest among us.

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.