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While the conservative judges of the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the historic 1973 judgment which guaranteed the right to abortion to all American women, the fight around abortion is already moving on to another field: that abortion pills.
Limited in what it can do, the Biden administration will focus on expanding access to abortion pills for women living in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted. But it is more than likely that some of them, as well as powerful conservative groups, will go to court to try to ban their use.
Abortion pills: an alternative?
Hot on the heels of the Supreme Court’s announcement on Friday, Democratic President Joe Biden called on health officials to make sure abortion pills are available to American women, saying he would “everything in his power” to protect the rights of women in states where they would be undermined.
Abortion pills, which can be used for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy in the United States, account for half of abortions in the country. Demand is expected to increase further after a dozen states have banned or imposed draconian restrictions on abortion, with more expected to follow.
Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch doctor whose organization supplies abortion pills on the Internet, says the situation is not as desperate as it was before the 1973 “Roe v. Wade” case, which guaranteed the right to abortion all over the country.
“We can’t stop the abortion pills from circulating”she told AFP. “There is therefore always access to a safe abortion if a woman becomes pregnant unintentionally”. But it’s far from guaranteed, worry many abortion rights advocates.
The law of the federated states, a real obstacle
The United States Medicines Agency, the FDA, approved the use of these pills about 20 years ago. Last year, she authorized their sending by mail.
But in anti-abortion states, their use remains a legal gray area and will certainly be the subject of battles in court.
On Sunday, the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, thus affirmed that medical abortions by telemedicine were “very dangerous medical interventions” and that they should only be done under medical supervision.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center that campaigns for access to contraception and abortion worldwide, 19 US states require abortion pills to be administered by a healthcare worker, thus prohibiting their delivery by mail.
And in states banning all methods of abortion, women could be prohibited from seeing doctors based in another state or abroad in teleconsultation.
In this case, they would have to travel to another state where these appointments would be allowed and receive their envelope at an address outside their state.
But the obstacles don’t stop there.
A medical abortion is done in two stages: first with mifepristone then, 24 to 48 hours later, misoprostol to induce contractions.
The question therefore arises: can a woman residing in an anti-abortion state be prosecuted if she receives the first dose elsewhere, but the second after returning home?
While progressive states take steps to make abortions easier for women in other parts of the country, conservative states may seek to sue health workers and groups involved in these efforts. And the patients themselves.
Anticipating such plans, Justice Minister Merrick Garland warned Friday that states cannot ban abortion pills since federal regulations prevail.