One Small Step For Choice, One Big Step For Women

You can't yell abuse at a woman seeking an abortion when she's doing it in the privacy of her home

To anti-choicers, this latest setback must be frustrating. Just when they thought they had American women's rights and reproductive functions under lock and key…well, this happens.

Now the little sluts can walk into a CVS or Walgreens and get an abortion pill, something that, despite what they thought, shit-canning Roe v. Wade didn’t cover. Now those who feel they have the absolute right to exercise control over the bodies of women of child-bearing age have a new reason to vent their righteous outrage.

For the first time, retail pharmacies, from corner drugstores to major chains like CVS and Walgreens, will be allowed to offer abortion pills in the United States under a regulatory change made Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration. The action could significantly expand access to abortion through medication.

That’s right; it’s possible that the overturning of Roe v. Wade may not be the overwhelming victory anti-choicers claimed it as, all because abortions may now be available in pill form.

Coming soon to a Canadian mail-order pharmacy near you.

(Honey, was their any mail today?

No, just some junk mail and my abortion- NBD.)

Expect anti-abortion picketers at your local CVS or Walgreens in 4…3…2….

Until now, mifepristone — the first pill used in the two-drug medication abortion regimen — could be dispensed only by a few mail-order pharmacies or by specially certified doctors or clinics. Under the new F.D.A. rules, patients will still need a prescription from a certified health care provider, but any pharmacy that agrees to accept those prescriptions and abide by certain other criteria can dispense the pills in its stores and by mail order.

The change comes as abortion pills, already used in more than half of pregnancy terminations in the U.S., are becoming even more sought after in the aftermath of last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning the federal right to abortion. With conservative states banning or sharply restricting abortion, the pills have increasingly become the focus of political and legal battles, which may influence a pharmacy’s decision about whether or not to dispense the medication.

Despite what the holier-than-thou anti-choice crowd may be thinking, the two-drug medication abortion regimen can still be obtained from Canadian pharmacies. Those with means (e.g.- White women) will always be able to find ways to obtain abortion services. That’s never been a problem. What the FDA’s decision means is that it’s democratizing the process and opening it up to a broader range of socioeconomic strata.

Because when you look at the abortion debate, it’s always really been about keeping Black and Brown women from obtaining abortion services. It’s about grinding down the already poor even as White women with means can always find the services they need. Ah, money and connection cure multitudes of evils, do they not?

Women will no longer necessarily have to run a gamut of bat-shit crazy anti-choice protestors spewing invective outside abortion clinics. They can take care of their business in the comfort of their own home. This should not be taken to imply that abortion will or should be taken any less seriously. No matter what, women shouldn’t be subjected to calumny and abuse because of intensely personal decisions.

Or because “Christian love” is being handed out at the doors of abortion clinics by holier-than-thou wackjobs off their Xanax.

The action is the latest step taken by the federal government to expand access to abortion pills by easing some of the restrictions that have applied to mifepristone since it was approved in 2000.

In December 2021, the F.D.A. said it would permanently lift the requirement that patients obtain mifepristone in person from a health provider, a step that paved the way for telemedicine abortion services which conduct medical consultations with patients by video, phone or online questionnaires and then arrange for them to receive the prescribed pills by mail.

On Tuesday, the F.D.A. officially removed the in-person requirement from its regulatory rule book for mifepristone, leaving in place the remaining two requirements: that health providers be certified to show they have the knowledge and ability to treat abortion patients and that patients complete a consent form.

If a woman has decided to obtain an abortion after consulting with her doctor, the FDA’s decision offers her a safe and easy way to take that step. No one else will need to know, and her privacy will be protected- because it’s no one’s damned business.

Perhaps in time, the overturning of Roe will turn out to be a hollow victory for anti-choicers. The battle they fought for 50 years will be a Pyrrhic- and largely meaningless- triumph.

Unsurprisingly, the response from anti-choicers was about as righteously outraged as one might’ve expected:

“The Biden administration has once again proved that it values abortion industry profits over women’s safety and unborn children’s lives,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser. the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-life America. “Abortion activists want to turn every post office and pharmacy into an abortion business, and the Biden F.D.A. is a willing participant.”

This reaction belies the scientific evidence that medication abortion poses little, if any, danger to a woman’s safety. Nor are “abortion activists” trying to “turn every post office and pharmacy into an abortion business.” Ms. Dannenfelser’s reaction seems a wee bit overcooked, perhaps because she knows that her organization has little legal ground for overturning the FDA’s decision.

They’re on the losing side of this argument, she knows it, and so all they have are histrionics and righteous outrage.

Anti-choicers can weep and rend their garments from now until the end of time if they’re so inclined, but this is a skirmish in the abortion debate in which they’re unlikely to prevail…and they know it. They can’t control the US Mail, nor can they control the travels of women who cross state lines- or even go to Mexico or Canada- to obtain medication abortions. Anti-choicers hate that the FDA has approved easy access to an abortion method that’s safe and can be done in the privacy of a woman’s home. That means they’ll be in a place where they can’t be subjected to the abuse and harassment of those self-appointed “protectors of life.”

Mifepristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy development, is authorized by the F.D.A. to be taken in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, although many clinics and telemedicine providers have begun offering it up to 12 or 13 weeks into pregnancy, a step they can legally take because there is scientific evidence that the pills are safe and effective in that time frame.

The second drug in the regimen, misoprostol, has never been as tightly restricted as mifepristone and is used for many different medical conditions; it is easily obtained at pharmacies through a typical prescription process. Misoprostol, which causes contractions that expel pregnancy tissue, is taken 24 to 48 hours after mifepristone.

Women should be able to make their own decisions, something the screaming ninnies HATE.

In America, women can, should, and must maintain agency over their bodies. Despite the efforts of the “party of small government” to the contrary, controlling the bodies and decisions of millions of women is a bridge too far. No government or political party has the wherewithal and/or capability to effect that type of surveillance state.

Nor should they. Not even the Nazis or the Soviets managed to pull that off.

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We should still strive for a world where, to borrow Hillary Clinton’s phrase, abortion is “safe, legal, and rare.” I firmly believe that no woman sees an abortion as a desirable thing, but there may be times when it’s the best of several bad options. A woman should be able to make the choice she feels is best given her circumstances. If she chooses to have an abortion, no one has the right to use her decision to advance their political/moral/religious agenda. She deserves support and love- not calumny and hectoring from those who see her as a political tool and not a person.

In a perfect world, abortion would be unnecessary, and all children would be wanted and born into nuclear families able to welcome and care for them. Alas, we live in a decidedly imperfect world, and the anti-choice crowd hates children even as they profess to love babies. Once a baby exits the womb, the anti-choice crowd wants nothing to do with the end product.

A just society must allow a woman the widest range of choices possible. No one has the right to force their point of view upon a woman who’s trying to determine what the best choice might be.

Evan Masingill, the chief executive of GenBioPro, which makes the generic version of mifepristone, said in a statement: “Today’s F.D.A. announcement expands access to medications that are essential for reproductive autonomy and is a step in the right direction that is especially needed to increase access to abortion care.”

Yes, there it is- “expands access to medications that are essential for reproductive autonomy.” Not “expands access to medications necessary to Republican and American Taliban control of women’s hoo-hahs.”

OK. Got that?

Don’t make me repeat it.

Think of it this way: What would you want for your daughter? Your sister? Your girlfriend? Would you want others who care only for their agenda trying to force their beliefs on her? Or would you want her to have the widest range of choices available so that she could make a sober, informed, and well-considered decision?

Women deserve agency and the right to exercise autonomy over their reproductive functions. Those functions should under no conceivable circumstances be under the control or influence of Church, State, or screaming ninnies off their Thorazine outside abortion clinics.

Don’t like abortions? Silly wabbit, there’s a perfectly simple solution available. All you need to do is ignore them like you do school shootings. Problem solved, eh?