CV NEWS FEED // The New York Times released two articles Thursday, highlighting efforts in six blue states to promote chemical abortion in pro-life states through “shield laws.”
In both pieces, NYT health and science writer Pam Belluck characterized the use of so-called “telemedicine abortion shield laws” as “A New Abortion Access Strategy,” as well as “A New War Between the States.”
Belluck noted that these “novel laws” are currently on the books in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Washington state. All six have Democratic governors with the exception of Vermont, which is led by liberal Republican Gov. Phil Scott.
Massive Demand Reported
According to Belluck, these laws “promise to protect doctors, nurse practitioners, and midwives licensed in those six states who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in the nearly two dozen states” that have enacted pro-life laws.
She emphasized that “tens of thousands” of women living in red states are using the laws to obtain these abortion-inducing drugs.
In one of her articles, Belluck called the laws “a new tool” to “protect” abortionists “from prosecutors elsewhere.”
She explained that they “block officials in red states who might prosecute or sue the abortion providers in” pro-abortion states.
“Those states won’t extradite doctors,” she indicated:
[The states] won’t turn over records. They won’t aid in any investigation. It’s a sharp break from the usual pattern of interstate cooperation>> SUPPORT FOR ABORTION PILLS: SURVEY RESULTS INCLUDE SURPRISING TREND AMONG US CATHOLICS <<
Interstate Commerce
“Behind an unmarked door in a boxy brick building outside Boston, a quiet rebellion is taking place,” Belluck wrote. “Here, in a 7-by-12-foot room, abortion is being made available to thousands of women in states where it is illegal.”
“The patients do not have to travel here to terminate their pregnancies, and they do not have to wait weeks to receive abortion medication from overseas,” she said:
Instead, they are obtaining abortion pills prescribed by licensed Massachusetts providers, packaged in the little room and mailed from a nearby post office, arriving days later in Texas, Missouri and other states where abortion is largely outlawed.
Belluck pointed out that abortion facilities “started mailing abortion pills under the shield laws just last summer.”
‘Irresponsible’ Mail Order Abortions
CatholicVote Director of Governmental Affairs Tom McClusky stated that the abortion-inducing drugs proliferated by the “shield laws” have “one purpose – death of the child.”
“The side effects, which the Biden administration tries to hide, include internal bleeding and even death of the mother,” McClusky continued.
“It is irresponsible anyone purportedly in health care would send these abortion drugs without any supervision and not caring they are supplying human traffickers and rapists tools to cover their crime,” he stressed.
Far-Reaching Effects
Belluck also noted that the laws’ “reach has surprised even some advocates.”
“[The abortion facilities have] already prescribed and mailed abortion pills to tens of thousands of women in Texas, Idaho, and other places that banned abortion after the [Dobbs] decision,” Belluck wrote.
The writer then outlined how the laws work:
Patients find [the pills] online and fill out forms about their medical history. Providers then evaluate whether patients are eligible. They can be up to 12 weeks pregnant and must have no disqualifying medical issues like an ectopic pregnancy or a blood-clotting disorder
In both of her pieces, Belluck quoted Texas Right to Life President John Seago.
The pro-life advocate warned that the rift between red and blue states, intensified by the presence of the pro-abortion laws, “can’t stand.”
“You have states not just picking their own strategy but really trying to completely sabotage the governing efforts of their neighboring states,” Seago summarized.
>> USCCB RELEASES EXPLAINER ON CHEMICAL ABORTION DRUGS <<
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