She had to go out of state twice, traversing icy roads and dodging a number of state laws to get abortion pills in the past year.
For women like this 32-year-old from South Dakota who want an abortion, these ordeals, along with sending pills through the mail, will become more important if the Supreme Court strikes down the right to terminate a pregnancy and leaves that decision up to of the states, as stated in a preliminary opinion of the judges. The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for her safety, said the abortion pills allowed her to end an unexpected and high-risk pregnancy and continue to care for the two children she already had.
But anti-abortion activists and politicians say they will try to ban out-of-state travel, long-distance doctor visits and mail-order pills.
“The issue of abortion will be decided by the abortion drugs,” said Mary Ziegler, a Florida State University School of Law professor specializing in reproductive law. “It will be the battle that will decide the extent to which an abortion ban can be enforced.”
The use of abortion pills has been on the rise in the United States since 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone, the main medicine to induce an abortion. More than half of abortions in the United States are caused by pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion rights.
Last year the FDA rescinded the mandate that women must pick up their abortion pills in person. Now it is allowed to be sent by mail to the whole country.
When the South Dakota woman discovered that the only clinic that offers abortions in the state might not schedule an appointment to prescribe the pill within the established time frames, she discovered that there was an online service called Just the Pill, which recommended that she go to Minnesota for a phone consultation with a doctor. A week later she returned to Minnesota to pick up the pills.
He took the first one right away, in his car, and cried on the drive back.
“I felt like I had lost a pregnancy,” she recounted. “I love my husband and my children. She knew exactly what I had to say goodbye to and it was a horrible thing.”
South Dakota is one of several states, including Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Ohio, Tennessee and Oklahoma, where Republicans have moved to restrict access to abortion pills in recent months. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said more in-person visits are needed to pick up the pills and ban their mailing to protect women and save “unborn children.” Nineteen states require a doctor to be present when pills are given to a patient.
In addition to looking for pills in another state, women can also order pills abroad through the Internet, according to Greer Donley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Some women get prescription abortion pills in states with no abortion restrictions.
“It allows someone to have an abortion without the intervention of a provider. It’s going to be a lot harder for states to control access to abortion,” Donley said.
Sue Leibel, state policy director for the Susan B. Anthony List, a prominent anti-abortion organization, admitted that’s an issue that worries Republican lawmakers.
“It is a new frontier. States are looking at how they enforce their laws” that restrict access to the pills, Leibel said. “I always say that if you close the front door, the pills will come through the back door.”
Leibel believes that women who want to have an abortion should not be judged and instead proposes that pharmacies, organizations and clinics that offer abortion pills be punished. She also says that opponents of abortion should elect a presidential candidate who is committed to overturning the FDA’s decision on abortion pills.
Donley fears state lawmakers will now take it out on women seeking the pills. In fact, a Louisiana House committee on Wednesday approved a bill that clears the way for women who want to terminate their pregnancies and those who assist them to be charged with murder.
“Many anti-abortion legislators may conclude that the only way to enforce these laws is to prosecute women” who want to terminate their pregnancies, Donley said.
