Religiously inspired anti-abortion legislators are ramping up their efforts nationwide to deny women abortion access — with denizens of the Peach State leading the latest attack.
Anti-choice legislators in Georgia have introduced a bill that would ban the delivery of abortion pills by mail. This is in response to the Food and Drug Administration’s recent action to codify access to medication abortion, the method of choice in nearly 40 percent of all abortions in the United States. Medication abortion, which was first approved by the FDA in 2000, is extremely safe, with serious complications in fewer than 0.4 percent of patients.
As such, the FDA now allows patients to have a telemedicine appointment with a provider who can prescribe the pills and send them to the patient by mail.
Despite the science proving the safety of abortion pills, Senate Bill 351, which was introduced in the Georgia Legislature earlier this week, requires patients to visit a doctor in-person and return at a later date to pick up the pills. Outrageously, the bill also requires the patient to sign off on a whopping 15 individual statements, including a false claim about abortion pill reversals. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has announced that there is no systematic proof of abortion pill reversals. The abortion rights group, Amplify Georgia, notes that the burdensome paperwork may discourage physicians from even offering abortion pill prescriptions, which is undoubtedly the bill’s intent.
Should this bill pass, Georgia will join 19 states that prohibit abortion pills.
“The strategy by anti-abortion religious fanatics is to introduce a tsunami of anti-abortion legislation,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Those of us who value true freedom of conscience and bodily autonomy must rise up to defend women’s basic rights to self-determination against this religion-based war on reproductive rights.”
As the ultraconservative Supreme Court debates the future of Roe v. Wade, there has never been a more urgent time to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would protect abortion rights across the country. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has long supported this necessary measure — read FFRF’s formal testimony letter and recent co-sponsor letter with more than 225 human rights, legal and civil rights organizations. We urge you to contact your senators and ask them to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act.
As Georgia shows, anti-abortion forces are mobilizing their forces — making it even more necessary to counter their efforts.