Thanks To Conservatives, Home Abortion May Be Coming
To Amazon Soon
By Samuel Warde
An interesting article was
published by The Christian
Science Monitor discussing the parallels
between “today’s movement towards home abortions” and the “cultural battles”
prior to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision by the
U.S. Supreme Court that extended the constitutional right to privacy to a
woman’s decision to have an abortion.
As Planned Parenthood reports, “Over 40
years later, Americans are still standing by this decision: 7 in 10
Americans believe Roe
v. Wade should remain the law of the land.” (That figure is
backed up by a recent Pew Research Center poll finding that “69% of
Americans say the historic ruling… should not be completely overturned.”)
The
Christian Science Monitor articles discusses the actions
of “Jane,
an underground collective that counseled women through – and later performed –
thousands of illegal abortions between 1968 and 1973,” comparing that group
with a newer activist organization known as Plan C –
a reference to a pill that induces and abortion that is “also referred to as
medication abortion.”
The women of Jane operated in a world in which abortion was illegal but viewed as necessary, even by many in law enforcement and the clergy. Today, abortion is legal, but advocates for it often work in a climate where the procedure is increasingly fraught with the risk of persecution and prosecution.
Between
2011 and 2015, legislators across dozens of states implemented nearly 300 laws that regulate who can
perform abortions and restrict how, when, and why a woman can undergo the
procedure.
The result is a two-tiered system where access to clinic-based
abortion care is limited to those with the resources to get to a place that provides
it, says Jill Adams, chief legal strategist for the Self-Induced Abortion (SIA)
Legal Team, a nonprofit consortium that works out of the University of
California, Berkeley.
Member of Plan C, like
Jane, believe that the heart of the issue is a woman’s absolute right to decide
if and when to have a child.
“[Jane] was about women trying to take back the night,” says Ms.
Coeytaux, the founder of Plan C, adding: “It was women saying, ‘If it’s going
to be illegal to go to a doctor then maybe we will be our own doctors.’ ”
Plan C “is women saying,
‘OK, this system isn’t working for me, and I’m going to build something new,’ ”
says Madison Liddle, who joined the group in November. “I see it as a
reproductive health revolution, with women taking [their bodies] into their own
hands.”
Plan C hopes to one
provide services to women seeking an abortion in much the way Jane did in the
days leading up to the passage of Roe v. Wade when the organization “began
training its members to perform surgical abortions themselves.”
As The Christian Science
Monitor explains:
Today, Plan C hopes to provide a similar service. By raising awareness about the abortion pill – and eventually making it accessible – the group hopes to give women the option to safely terminate their pregnancies without relying on distant or costly medical providers.
The
team envisions a world where medical abortion pills are as ubiquitous as the
morning-after pill, which is available not only over the counter at any
pharmacy, but also online via Amazon.
“You
would get it delivered to your house. And it would come with information and
also the option to have a telemedicine consult if you wanted it,” says Amy
Merrill, Plan C’s communications director. “And otherwise you would have
everything that you need to [administer] self care.”
“We
are not pushing this on anyone,” she adds. “We just really believe it should be
an option.”
And this scenario is
highly likely as Mediaite explains:
Different states have different laws governing the use of medication abortion, although the Food and Drug Administration just last year significantly loosened restrictions around the pill, allowing for lower dosages and fewer visits with a doctor. In most cases, purchasing medication abortion online requires telemedicine appointments with a doctor before use.
And, as Mediaite concludes,
if conservatives are shocked at the prospect of abortion on demand being
available via Amazon – they only have themselves to blame.
To
groups like Plan C, technology is the future of protecting reproductive rights.
And if conservatives are shocked, uncomfortable, even disgusted by the idea of
abortions being available on Amazon, they have themselves and their sneaky,
anti-woman laws to thank — they’ve forced abortion rights advocates to get
creative to protect women’s rights and, well, this is what they’ve come up
with.
Samuel Warde
is a writer, social and political activist, and all-around troublemaker.