Shield Laws Keep Abortion Pill Access Steady, Research Finds

I wouldn't say "increased access" to abortion. I think all women should have the same access to healthcare they had before the Supremely Catholic Court struck down Roe in 2022. If this means they can order termination pills from a doctor in another state, then so be it. 

No woman should have fewer rights over her own body, healthcare, ability to care for her children, earning potential, and career path than the men in her state just because of where she lives. 

If shield laws are a way of protecting access to these vital medications when women need them, then that's great with me. 

Elect Democrats in 2024 to enshrine equal rights to women into our Constitution.

Medication abortion has maintained abortion access for many, especially woman living in states with abortion bans as evidenced by the 10% increase in abortion nationwide from 2022 to 2023.

However it hasn't helped women with pregnancy complications that need in person medical care, and procedures not mediation resulting in both higher maternal (2%-51%) and infant (16%) mortality rates.

Nor does it protect against the Supreme Court potentially overriding FDA decisions with no scientific or medical basis to support such decisions.

National legislation is needed to protect reproductive healthcare. Access to medication abortion is just a temporary work around just like Roe was for 50 years.

" More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a 10% increase from 2020, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute"

"Medication abortions made up 63% of all abortions in the US in 2023, with 642,700 medication abortions taking place in formal healthcare settings. Only 492,210 medication abortions occurred in 2020, making up 53% of US abortions, the study concluded."

"the number of medication abortions in 2023 may be higher than the study suggests. Current figures do not include self-managed abortions or those who received abortion medication in states where there are total bans."

"Among individual abortion policies, states with a licensed physician requirement had a 51% higher total maternal mortality and a 35% higher maternal mortality (i.e. a death during pregnancy or within 42 days of being pregnant), and restrictions on state Medicaid funding for abortion was associated with a 29% higher total maternal mortality."

"States with the tightest abortion laws had a 16% increased infant mortality rate from 2014 to 2018, compared to the states with the least restrictions on abortion"

" Most of the debate on Tuesday morning focused on whether the challengers have standing, so that the lawsuit can go forward. Representing the FDA, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that the lawsuit can only go forward if the challengers can identify a doctor who faces imminent harm as a result of the 2016 and 2021 changes. But the challengers’ standing argument, she contended, rests on a “long chain of remote contingencies”:"

"Some of the court’s more conservative justices were skeptical – most notably, Justice Samuel Alito, who pressed Prelogar to explain whether anyone would be able to sue to challenge the 2016 and 2021 changes. Even if the FDA acted unlawfully in making those changes, Alito said incredulously, “the American people have no remedy?”

"Chief Justice John Roberts asked both Prelogar and Jessica Ellsworth, representing Danco, to identify a point at which an increase in the risks associated with mifepristone might be enough to confer standing. What percentage of adverse consequences would suffice, Roberts asked, or how many visits to the emergency room?"

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/03/supreme-court-appears-likely-to-allow-abortion-drug-to-remain-available/

https://www.axios.com/2023/01/19/mothers-anti-abortion-bans-states-die

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-01-18/infant-deaths-higher-in-states-where-abortion-is-banned-report

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306396

https://sph.tulane.edu/news/study-finds-higher-maternal-mortality-rates-states-more-abortion-restrictions

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/abortion-increase-2023-data

Pregnancy is one of the hardest things to deal with for a man or a woman, however, a woman is the one who has to carry toe baby, go throught he possible medical issues and the strenuous task of giving birth -- therefore it should be entirely on her if she is willing to do it or not. if you ar5e against it, then you should try to walk a mile in a pregnant woman's shoes on a 100 degree day in NYC and see how you feel.

Abortion must be kept accessible. Make no mistake: attempts to limit access to abortion are attempts to limit power of women. Don't be fooled

Abortion is Women healthcare and nothing more! People are trying make it something more than healthcare!

than you have Medicare advantage which is nothing more to privatization of Medicare and the fleecing of Americans 

Let's do everything we can to ensure women's access to the healthcare that they need.  Science relative policies and laws that do not take science into account should have no place on the books.  Religion and its views have no place in public policy.

It all starts with the penis yet no law governs the use of it. Must be nice to be a man. 

Women are capable of making their own decisions about whether to carry a pregnancy to term.  Old men should not be making these decisions!

My body my choice !

Everyone should have access! 

Whether or not to bear a child and to choose to a lifetime commitment to that child must always be the woman's choice.  And if she decides NOT to bear a child we must respect her choice.  

No one else gets to make this choice for her!  

Certainly not some politician in a Statehouse or in Washington, DC!  

It is not their life.  

It is not their choice. 

Abortion is necessary healthcare.  Only the pregnant person and her doctor can decide

No one wants abortions, but sometimes they are needed And when needed this decision should be made by the mother in consideration of medical advice .....and not by strangers or government mandate. 

"Do you support increased abortion access?"

A Qualified Yes. 

Roe v. Wade was the Gold Standard.

The Disgraced Supreme Court did away with Roe v. Wade.

So the answer may depend on which state you live in and how mindlessly Red it is.

To be clear: Conservative views on abortion are not science based, but they hide that fact. 

Killing human fetus... Inhuman!

Increased access to abortion means safety and fewer women dying. Nature doesn't care about a pope in 1590 or the American conservatives trying to prevent Jimmy Carter from getting a second term deciding what is immoral in order to make themselves richer, the poor poorer, and the people that those in power hated suffering even more.

women are not proprty of the state. Its sad how quickly the U.S. devoled into a fascist nation...it did'nt happen overnight, but its here, this is how it looks, wrapped in a flag, clutching a bible.

I support increased abortion access.  If you don't want one, don't get one.  If it is against your deeply held religious beleifs, fine!  Don't Get one!  No one is forcing someone to do so.  For millions of others, however, they do not share those same beleifs and one should not be allowed to legislate their religious beleifs into law.

Since when is the USA dictated to by Sharia Law?

These Shield Laws are absolutely necessary, so more women don't die trying to abort an unwanted pregnancy. It was because so many women had died trying to abort that Roe v Wade was created! Most times when a woman tries to get the man whose penis caused this to begin with charged, they take his word over hers. The male gets to walk away, while the woman is now scarred for life! I have watched this happen too many times in my 74 years! During my lifetime, when a woman charged a man with rape, she got blamed for it happening! That's why I marched for Women's Rights & Abortion Rights. It takes 2 to create the pregnancy, but the woman was always the one blamed. She inticed the man to want sex with her, so its her fault! WRONG thinking. If he controlled his desires and kept his penis in his pants, she wouldn't have this problem! At some parties, women got drugged and then screwed. When she realizes what happened, she's scarred for life! This never happened to me, but I saw it happen to others. I was less trusting, and never put myself in that position. Women worked hard to get Roe v Wade passed, and now it's gone. What we've worked for has been lost! I will not go back to the thinking of the 50's, yet that's where we're are being pushed!       

We should have even more abortion access across the country than we had with Roe v Wade. Pregnant people should be able to choose what works for their health, lives and futures.