April 2, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – As abortions are suspended in numerous states by leaders hoping to conserve medical supplies to focus on the coronavirus, the Democrat attorneys general of 20 states plus the nation’s capital are calling on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to waive ordinary reegulations on abortion pills so women can kill their babies at home.
The office of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra took the lead on the group’s letter, which calls for waiving the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) governing the dispensement of abortion pill, “to allow certified prescribers to use telehealth for Mifepristone.”
“The REMS create unnecessary delays for women who need access to time-sensitive health care,” the letter argues, endangering women by “forcing” them to travel to a state where abortions have not been suspended. “These women are putting themselves and their families at risk when they seek out the health care that they need, and the federal government must act to ensure that no matter where they live, they can continue to receive necessary, safe, and legal abortion care.”
The letter was signed by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia.
The Trump administration, which is pro-life and has gone after online sellers of abortion pills for trying to circumvent doctor’s visits, is unlikely to act on the AGs’ recommendations. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has already rejected calls to relax the conditions on accessing abortion pills due to the coronavirus.
The FDA maintains that REMS must be applied to abortion pills so providers can “assess the duration of the pregnancy accurately, diagnose ectopic pregnancies, and provide surgical intervention in cases of incomplete abortion or severe bleeding, or to have made arrangements for others to provide such care”; and give women “access to medical facilities for emergency care.”
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams and the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have advised healthcare facilities to reschedule non-urgent appointments and elective procedures, both to limit the spread of the coronavirus and to free up time and resources to focus on patients afflicted by COVID-19 (the illness caused by the coronavirus).
Compliance with this guidance has been mixed, leading numerous states to mandate that facilities temporarily halt “non-essential” medical procedures. Several of them have clarified that elective abortions will be held to the same standards as all other procedures during this time, leading to several lawsuits demanding exemptions for Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers.