Democratic lawmakers push FDA to lift restrictions on abortion pill

[DonViejo]

Source: Politico


The group notes that the FDA suspended in-person requirements for many other drugs during the pandemic, including opioids, but kept them in place for mifepristone.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN

02/09/2021 10:47 AM EST

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are asking the Food and Drug Administration to lift rules requiring people seeking medication abortion to obtain pills in-person, citing pandemic-related risks.

Democratic women on the watchdog panel, in a letter to acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock that was first shared with POLITICO, said the agency must "immediately eliminate the medically unnecessary in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone," referring to one of two drugs used in medication abortions.

The group notes that the FDA suspended in-person requirements for many other drugs during the pandemic, including opioids, but kept them in place for mifepristone, which was approved in 2000.

“Imposing this requirement in the midst of a deadly pandemic—one that has disproportionately impacted communities of color across the United States—needlessly places patients and providers in harm’s way, and further entrenches longstanding health inequities,” the group wrote.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/09/democrats-house-fda-abortion-restrictions-467871

[AllyCat]

1. Yes! Women should not have to go through a surgical procedure

When an effective home treatment is available!

[Lonestarblue]

2. Please also demand that the birth control pill be made available over the counter.

It has proven to be safe over decades of use, and many countries allow it to be sold as an OTC. The only reason it is not available here is the objection of the white evangelicals (because women might have sex outside of marriage—horrors!) and doctors who want the money for an office visit to prescribe a drug as safe as any pain medication that can be bought at any drugstore. It’s long past time to ignore the objections and give US women the convenience of buying this form of birth control OTC.