This week, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) released a new study about the prevalence of telehealth abortions. The authors obtained data from Aid Access which uses shield laws to ship chemical abortion pills throughout the United States. The study obtained and analyzed data on over 118,000 chemical abortion pill packs that were sent during a 15-month time period between July 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. This JAMA study has been covered by a number of media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, and StatNews.
Not surprisingly, the authors found that over 84 percent of chemical abortion pills were sent to states that had strong pro-life laws in place. Interestingly, about 16 percent were sent to states where abortion is broadly legal. Overall, an analysis of county level data provides few surprises. Counties in states with strong pro-life laws had a telehealth abortion rate that was over seven times higher than counties located in states with more permissive abortion policies. Counties with higher poverty rates had higher telehealth abortion rate than counties with lower poverty rates. Furthermore, the rate of telehealth abortions was substantially higher in those counties located longer distances from abortion clinics.
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The strong pro-life laws that were enacted after the Dobbs decision are still doing some good. Multiple studies have shown that birth rates are higher in states that have enacted strong pro-life laws post-Dobbs. However, this JAMA study does provide evidence that telehealth abortions are reducing the impact of these strong pro-life laws. Furthermore, research has shown that adverse events due to chemical abortion have increased after the FDA allowed women to obtain chemical abortions without an in-person medical exam. Also, the recent story out of Texas shows that abusive men can order chemical abortion pills online and use them to force unsuspecting women to abort their pregnancies against their will.
Once again, ending telehealth abortions needs to be a top priority for pro-lifers. Telehealth abortions only became possible during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. That is when the FDA ended the requirement of an in-person medical exam for women obtaining chemical abortions. The Biden administration FDA continued this unwise policy after the pandemic’s conclusion. Right now, the Trump administration FDA clearly has the power to restore the old pre-pandemic rules regarding chemical abortions.
LifeNews.com Note: Michael New is an assistant professor at the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America and a senior associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
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Author: Michael New Ph.D.
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