Ban on Telemedicine Abortions and a Win for Pro-Life Students in Oregon

Women in Ohio who want to kill their unborn babies with abortion-inducing drugs can’t do so through telemedicine. Governor Mike DeWine recently signed a bill into law that requires the doctor to be present when the woman takes the first of two abortion-inducing drugs. Any doctor who doesn’t follow the law faces a felony and license suspension.

In an email to Live Action News, Mike Harrington, president of the pro-life group Created Equal, said the drugs are dangerous to mothers as well as the babies.

“These drugs have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings, including two dozen mothers. Allowing abortionists to prescribe these life-threatening drugs using telecommunications, instead of seeing patients in person, will only increase the complications.”

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, the government expanded telehealth and telemedicine. Telehealth is medical consultations over the telephone or web between medical professionals and patients. Telemedicine is diagnosis and treatment through electronic channels. Senator Marsha Blackburn supports expanding telehealth, saying that all Americans, “not just the medically complex or vulnerable patients, should have access to these services.”

Sen. Blackburn asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to ease telehealth regulations for Medicare patients, and the Trump administration allowed the CMS to do so. But one of the consequences of the wider use of these services is doctors and women who want to use telecommunications for so-called abortion therapy. This certainly isn’t what the pro-life Sen. Blackburn had in mind.

In other pro-life news, pro-life students at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, will be allowed to share their views with other students freely and openly outdoors. The Students for Life group had been restricted to two small areas on the 100-acre campus and had to get permission at least two weeks in advance. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the group’s legal counsel, announced that the school has agreed to change its restrictive policy after it filed a lawsuit on the group’s behalf.

“The only permit students need to speak on campus is the First Amendment,” said ADF Legal Counsel Michael Ross. “Chemeketa Community College’s previous policy placed a restriction on these fundamental freedoms by confining students to so-called ‘speech zones’ and requiring reservations weeks in advance. Thankfully, Chemeketa has agreed to revise these unconstitutional policies and help ensure that all students can engage in free expression on campus.”

The school also agreed to pay $25,000 in attorneys’ fees. ADF has dismissed the lawsuit.