Despite FDA ruling, KY lawmaker wants to make mailed abortion medication illegal
Even though a federal rule change last week gives women the option of obtaining medication by mail to induce abortions, one Kentucky lawmaker has introduced a bill to make that access illegal.
The Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 16 eliminated a key restriction that allows patients to receive abortion pills by mail after telehealth consultations with their medical providers. Though exceptions have been made during the COVID-19 pandemic, the pills typically cannot be received by mail; a physician has to dispense the medication in person.
This rule change will significantly broaden access for women to obtain the drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. The first pill, usually taken within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, blocks the body from producing the hormone progesterone, which in effect stops a pregnancy from progressing. Misoprostol is then taken one or two days later and causes the uterus to expel its contents.
Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions administered in the country before nine weeks of gestation, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and is widely considered “safe and effective.”
At least 19 states, however, have already enacted restrictions barring women from receiving abortion pills by mail. Though Kentucky has enacted a long list of limitations on abortion, including a trigger law that will immediately make the medical procedure illegal in the commonwealth if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade next summer, there is no law on the books banning abortion pills by mail. One lawmaker aims to change that.
The day before the FDA’s decision, Rep. Nancy Tate, R-Brandenburg walked lawmakers through what she’s calling the Humanity in Healthcare Act 2022, which she originally introduced in October. Though she has yet to file the bill ahead of the January session, Tate laid out a series of restrictions the bill would set on overall access to abortion, including banning the receipt of abortion pills by mail.
In 2020, 4,104 abortions were performed in the commonwealth, according to the Department for Public Health’s Office of Vital Statistics. Of those 4,104 abortions, 366 were performed on people ages 15 to 19. Thirteen were performed on people under age 13. A majority of those abortions — 2,085 — were medication abortions.
Tate’s omnibus anti-abortion bill, as she presented it to lawmakers in the Interim Joint Health, Welfare and Family Services Committee, aims to:
Make illegal the sending of abortion pills by mail
- Update the current laws impacting parental consent when minors seek abortions
- Ensure the “dignified care for the terminated remains of pregnancy loss”
- Update the state’s pregnancy termination statistics
- Enshrine that there are no taxpayer funded abortions in the commonwealth
- Clarify Kentucky’s “conscience protections”
Many of these limitations are already codified into law or the practice is highly regulated: health care facilities already have standards in place for how to respectfully dispose of fetal remains, and parental consent is already required in Kentucky for a minor to receive in abortion.
But Tate’s bill takes them a step further. A judge, for instance, can grant an exception to the state’s parental consent law if they deem it appropriate, a step called judicial bypass. Such exceptions are needed, experts and medical associations say, to leave room for young women who become pregnant through sexual abuse, especially at the hands of a parent or guardian.
Tate’s bill would make it harder to obtain judicial bypass, and require the physician sign an affidavit “stating parental consent is secured,” or else they’d be subject to disciplinary action from the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and possible criminal penalties.
The point of the bill, Tate told lawmakers, is to make sure that “as long as abortions are legal in the state of Kentucky, that we keep them as safe as possible.”
But opponents of the bill say it’s another veiled attempt by Republicans to make the procedure more inaccessible.
Dr. La-Tisha Frazier, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the University of Louisville who testified in opposition to Tate’s bill in committee, said, “We know without a doubt that medication abortion is a safe, effective option that gives patients more control over their own health care.”
Tamarra Wieder, director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates of Kentucky, said by “ignoring current medical and scientific guidance,” Tate’s slate of proposals places further undue burden on women seeking the procedure and doctors providing it.
“We should be doing everything we can to increase access to care instead of passing legislation that criminalizes providers, inserts politics into medicine, and makes our state more hostile when it comes to caring for Kentuckians. This bill is the antithesis of showing we support access to basic health care,” Wieder said. “It is clear that the Kentucky General Assembly will not stop until abortion is completely banned.”
Tate’s proposal is likely to gain traction among anti-abortion Republicans who hold a supermajority in both chambers — a body that has repeatedly tried to blunt abortion access over the years. Next November, Kentuckians will vote in a statewide referendum whether to add an amendment to the constitution that revokes the guaranteed right to an abortion.
As Rep. Ryan Dotson, R-Winchester, put it in the December committee meeting, “We are elected, and we are here to protect and service the citizens of the commonwealth. That includes the unborn fetus and unborn infant that is a God-given life.”
