US conservatives vow harsh restrictions to curtail abortion pills
US conservatives vow harsh restrictions to curtail abortion pills
Discreet and available by mail, abortion-inducing pills could make conservative abortion bans challenging to enforce.
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More than half of all the abortions in the US in 2020 were pill-induced rather than clinic procedures [File: George Frey/Reuters]
By Brian Osgood
Published On 1 Jul 20221 Jul 2022
The US Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that enshrined the legal right to abortion in the United States in federal law, reversing nearly 50 years of precedent and inflaming a sharp ideological divide. In 2020, more than half of US abortions were pill-induced which could complicate conservative efforts to enforce abortion bans. Abortion pills such as mifepristone and misoprostol will now take centre stage in battles between conservative states seeking to curtail abortion and liberal states fighting to safeguard it. Anti-abortion rights groups have indicated that they will take an increasingly punitive approach to restrict the availability of abortion pills, going so far as to promote potential prison time for those who share information about their use in states where abortion is banned.
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With Roe struck down, anti-abortion rights groups are facing a “completely different landscape” that will give states the ability to “revisit” policies that were not previously possible, Laura Echevarria, a spokesperson for the anti-abortion rights group National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), told Al Jazeera.
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Protesters hold each other at a rally in favour of abortion rights in San Francisco, California which has pledged to become a sanctuary state for those who travel from states with abortion bans seeking the procedure [Josie Lepe/AP Photo]
Elected officials such as district attorneys, who in the US criminal legal system are given substantial flexibility to decide which crimes to focus enforcement efforts on, could also play a role. On the day that Roe was overturned, the progressive group Fair and Just Prosecution released a statement signed by dozens of prosecutors and DAs across the country pledging that, even in states where abortion is outlawed, they will not focus their prosecution efforts on cases relating to abortion.That is a strategy that some conservative states and anti-abortion rights groups have anticipated. Texas is considering legislation that would give DAs the power to prosecute cases in municipalities other than their own, giving conservatives the ability to crack down on areas under the control of more liberal officials who may not prioritise enforcement of abortion bans.
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Anti-abortion rights groups have consistently sought to portray medically induced abortions as dangerous and unpredictable, but this is not a position rooted in scientific evidence.
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Hey Jane, a telehealth abortion provider, told Al Jazeera in a statement that, “Abortion care via mail is now likely to be the most viable form of access for most of the country.” Other providers that are based outside the US, such as the group Aid Access, could also pose a challenge to conservatives seeking to penalise providers: it is difficult to see what path is available for cracking down on such groups, which have experience sending the pills to countries where abortion has been illegal for years. Still, liberal states seeking to protect abortion rights and assist those who travel from red states to seek them out will face challenges of their own, and conservatives have promised to target people who travel to obtain abortions, even in states where they are still legal.
One such challenge will be the increased scale of demand blue states will have to accommodate. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research group, has estimated that California could become the closest source of abortion care for hundreds of thousands of women. The state’s Governor Gavin Newsom has called for funding to prepare for an “influx of women seeking reproductive healthcare” in California.
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/1/conservatives-seek-restrictive-measures-to-penalize-abortion-pills