An American court has halted the practice of sending out abortion pills by post.
A unanimous panel for the U.S Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must restore critical safeguards for chemical abortion drugs and disallow their shipment by mail.
The ruling follows an application by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing four medical associations and four doctors experienced in caring for pregnant and post-abortive women.
They asked the 5th Circuit to uphold a federal district court’s decision protecting the health and safety of women and girls against chemical abortion drugs.
“The 5th Circuit rightly required the FDA to do its job and restore crucial safeguards for women and girls, including ending illegal mail-order abortions,” said ADF senior counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Regulatory Practice.
“The FDA will finally be made to account for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and the rule of law by unlawfully removing every meaningful safeguard from the chemical abortion drug regimen.
“The FDA’s unprecedented and unlawful actions did not reflect scientific judgment but rather revealed politically driven decisions to push a dangerous drug regimen without regard to women’s health or the rule of law.
“This is a significant victory for the doctors and medical associations we represent and, more importantly, the health and safety of women.”
In the UK, a similar controversial abortion “pills by post” scheme was introduced under emergency Covid regulations in March 2020, but has been continued.
The scheme allows women to order abortion pills over the phone without any in-person medical examination, which has led to fears over upholding healthcare standards and safeguarding against coercion.
Evidence collected from 85 freedom of information requests to NHS trusts revealed that more than one in 17 women, around 20 a day, who used the pills by post service in 2020 needed hospital treatment.
A GB News investigation found that ambulance dispatches and 999 calls responding to abortion pill concerns rose by 64 per cent between 2019 and 2022.
Lois McLatchie Miller of ADF UK said that the decision by ruling by the American court was a “common-sense decision that protects vulnerable women from the real dangers of DIY abortions performed in their own bathrooms”.
She said: “In the UK, our ‘pills by post’ abortion scheme – while lucrative for the abortion industry – has led to one in 17 women who take mail-ordered pills needing hospitalisation.”
She said that the recent jailing of Carla Foster, a Stoke mother-of-three who obtained abortion pills to abort her daughter at eight months’ gestation, “demonstrated the severe harms that mailing abortion pills with no in-person medical supervision can cause.
“Women deserve far better than this,” she added.
Under the court ruling, the abortion pills, comprising of mifepristone, will continue to be available under regulations dating from 2016.
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