Ohio bans unsupervised abortion thru web-based video platforms

COLUMBUS — Last year, Ohio’s oldest abortion facility closed due to medical malpractice. As brick and mortar facilities continue to close across the state, a new danger lurks as telemedicine prescriptions for abortions are becoming more prevalent during COVID shutdowns.

In a growing web-based culture, conservatives in the Ohio Legislature are addressing this problem. Their latest law demonstrates agreement that abortion is not healthcare. State Senator Steve Huffman, (R-Tipp City) was the sponsor of Senate Bill 260.

“There is a time and place for telemedicine, but in such a critical, vulnerable time, this (abortion) is not one of them,” the Senator said in committee.

The new law states that “No physician shall personally furnish or otherwise provide an abortion-inducing drug to a pregnant woman unless the physician is physically present at the location where the initial dose of the drug or regimen of drugs is consumed at the time the initial dose is consumed.”

The measure, which requires a fourth-degree felony for violating the law for the first offense, gained the support of a large group of pro-life advocates, including the Right to Life Action Coalition.

“We believe abortion by telemedicine is a dangerous precedent and can lead to potential significant harms for the women involved,” says Barry Sheets, the legislative consultant for the Right to Life Action Coalition of Ohio. “The drugs involved are dangerous, and are given for the purpose of terminating a growing life inside of the pregnant woman.  Should an adverse reaction occur, having a licensed physician only available via an electronic device can delay or prevent necessary immediate care from being provided.”

According to Dr. Lindsay Rerko, a primary care physician in Columbus, she said the medication was too risky to be administered over telemedicine. She cited data that said the medication had resulted in twenty-four deaths.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), twenty-four women died from a range of complications induced by the abortion drugs as part of the greater 2,740 cases of reported complications associated with the abortion drugs. Those complications included serious infections, severe hemorrhage, and the rupture of previously undiscovered ectopic pregnancies.

According to committee testimony by a representative of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, the abortion provider already has been prescribing abortion drugs by telemedicine for several years. There is no record of these abortions being reported.

Abortion supporters readily promote unregulated online pharmacies that sell and ship dangerous abortion drugs to women across the world, even in countries where abortion is illegal. The majority of these websites have no physician oversight. The only physician-ran website that the pro-abortion group “Plan C” promotes is in direct violation of the authority of the FDA.

Chemical abortions compose of almost forty-percent of all abortions in the United States. The measure focuses on a two-pill regimen used in medication abortions, Mifepristone and Misoprostol.

The dangers of ordering abortion pills online have already led to shocking cases in Ohio. Kalina Gillum, age 21, and Braden Mull, age 25, appeared in court in Licking County, facing charges after they ordered medications online to abort their twenty-eight-week old baby who was left in a trash bag.

According to Guttmacher Institute, Ohio joins eighteen other states that require the physical presence of a physician for chemical abortions.

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Bottom Line:

“Because GOD did not put me to death in the womb and let my mother become my grave, her womb forever filled with me.” Jeremiah 20:17