By Dave Andrusko
Late Thursday afternoon, Gov. Lee signed HB 2416 which places firm and protective requirements on how and where the abortion pill is dispensed.
According to the law, “A manufacturer, supplier, pharmacy, physician, qualified physician, or other people may not provide an abortion-inducing drug via courier, delivery, or mail service.”
The law “requires that all hospitals or other facilities that provide abortion-inducing drugs report each chemical abortion performed on prescribed forms and that the physician who provided the drug, report if the patient experiences an adverse event,” according to Rebecca Cardenas and Ryan Brisling.
Violators would face a Class E felony charge and up to a $50,000 fine.
In 2021, during the pandemic the FDA, approved the delivery and telehealth dispensing of the abortion inducing drugs. In December the FDA eliminated the requirement that women go in person to the abortionist’s office. The drugs can be mailed to them—“Do It Yourself” abortion.
When the bill passed the Senate, Tennessee Right to Life applauded lawmakers:
BREAKING NEWS! HB2416/SB2281 Passed on the Senate Floor today with a 26-4 vote. This bill makes it a criminal offense in Tennessee to prescribe RU-486 without being in the physical presence of the patient.
Thank you Sen Mike Bell for sponsoring this legislation. We appreciate ProLife Tennesseeans all across the state for your calls and e-mails! This bill has already passed in the House and now moves on to the Governor’s desk.
States are tackling medication abortions in various ways. They propose to ban the pills altogether or to be dispensed only at the abortion clinic. Another approach is to require their state’s informed consent tell women that there is a good chance she can save her baby if she promptly changes course—Abortion Pill Reversal (APR).
The success of APR depends on a woman being told that there is a window of opportunity to reverse the effects of the lethal chemical if she seeks medical attention in time and does not take the second drug of the two-drug protocol.
Christina Francis is the chair of the board of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG). She has written extensively about the danger that posed by mifepristone/misoprostol. One example:
One of the largest studies to date, which analyzed high-quality registry data obtained from nearly 50,000 women in Finland, found that the overall incidence of immediate adverse events is four-fold higher for medical abortions than for surgical abortions. The same study showed that nearly 7% of women will need surgical intervention — a significant number when you consider there are nearly 900,000 abortions per year in the U.S., 40% of which are medication abortions.