No need to go to the doctor in person for a voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) in large parts of the United States. The American health authorities authorized Thursday, December 16, 2021 access to abortion pills, without them being delivered to women by a health professional. These tablets can now be sent by post, after a telemedicine visit and a prescription by a doctor.
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This measure, which was implemented harshly during the Covid-19 pandemic, is therefore perpetuated. It allows women who have difficulties, particularly in rural areas, to go to clinics performing abortion to have access to this right guaranteed since 1973 by the American Supreme Court.
“A huge step forward”
Medicinal abortions are authorized by the United States Drug Agency (FDA) up to ten weeks of pregnancy. They require the intake of two drugs: first mifepristone, which blocks the development of pregnancy, then the next day misoprostol, which triggers abortion.
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However, mifepristone has been framed since its authorization in 2000 by rules that many militant associations denounce as political. Abortions using mifepristone and misoprostol are safe and complications very rare, experts say.
It’s about “A huge step forward which will allow many patients to have access to this safe drug”, reacted an official of ACLU, the American Union for Civil Liberties.
The right to abortion still threatened
Fewer than 900,000 abortions are performed each year in the United States, 40% of which were medicinal in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which campaigns for access to abortion.
This decision by the health authorities comes at a time when the right to abortion is strongly challenged in conservative states. “Biden administration authorizes unsafe abortions, do it yourself, at home”, denounced the Charlotte-Lozier Institute, which campaigns against abortion.
However, this decision cannot be applied in nineteen states in the South and the Midwest where teleconsultations for an abortion are prohibited. Inequalities in access to abortion are therefore likely to worsen across the country, where the Supreme Court has counted since October 2020 and the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a majority of “wise” conservatives.
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