A month ago, on June 24, “pro-life” America rejoiced: after nearly five decades, the Supreme Court gave the green light to a local ban on abortion. Immediately the first states rushed into the breach. A month later, eight have banned abortion: in the South (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama) and the Midwest (South Dakota, Missouri, Wisconsin). Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and Tennessee will soon follow suit — unless suspended by local courts, such as in Utah, Kentucky, Arizona, Louisiana and West Virginia.
One in two abortions by abortion pill in the United States
In the near future, abortion could therefore be banned in around twenty states. However, in the eyes of pro-life activists, this decision only partially resolves the issue. Because if doctors can no longer perform abortion, except for exceptions provided for by local law (danger to the life of the mother, etc.), the operation is not the only way to abort. In 2000, the FDA, the US federal agency that issues authorizations for drugs, gave the green light to the abortion pill, available on prescription and up to ten weeks of pregnancy.
This procedure – it is actually two types of pills – has made its way: before the Supreme Court’s decision, it represented half of abortions across the Atlantic. However, what prevents, even in the anti-abortion States, to obtain the pills by mail? Due to Covid-19, the FDA, which previously stipulated that the prescription must be obtained in person at a hospital or clinic, authorized teleconsultation and the sending of the pills. Contested by the Trump administration, this measure was definitively endorsed by the Biden administration, regardless of the health situation.
Abortion pills in the mail
For states opposed to abortion, it is therefore imperative to act. But how ? In the eyes of the US Post Office, sending abortion pills is legal, regardless of the destination. The Postal Service is subject to federal law, not state law. Moreover, it is obviously out of the question to monitor the mail of all American women. And even if a suspicious envelope is intercepted, no law, for the time being, punishes women who have an abortion: only people participating in one way or another in an abortion (doctor, or even taxi having transported the woman pregnant, Texas) can be prosecuted.
“Sanctioning women would be very unpopular, says Christine Vestal, health reporter at Stateline, an online nonprofit. The pro-life movement is aware that, politically, this is impossible. He would lose a lot of support, including in the Republican camp. »
A proliferation of anti-abortion laws
Anti-abortion states are not helpless, however. Many laws are under study there, or have already been adopted. In Louisiana, for example, sending pills through the mail is illegal and a sentence of up to five years in prison can be handed down. Could a doctor based in California, for example, be prosecuted by the state of Louisiana for having been consulted online by a woman from New Orleans? “It’s preposterous, loose a diplomat based in Washington. There is currently an escalation of laws, and it is not over: the most conservative elected officials are testing how far they can go. »
Organizations have already stopped, in Montana for example, distributing abortion pills to non-resident women, for fear of possible future lawsuits, which are always costly. “With the abortion pill, we are in an extremely complex gray area», summarizes Christine Vestal. This is what is at stake in the next act of the abortion debate in the United States, and its outcome will take place in court.
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