Alabama House Committee Passes Bill to Ban Sales of the Abortion Pill

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Feb 24, 2022   |   6:07PM   |   Montgomerty, Alabama

An Alabama House committee voted Wednesday to ban dangerous abortion drugs in their state as abortion activists push to expand them.

The Associated Press reports the state House Judiciary Committee advanced the Alabama Chemical Abortion Prohibition Act (House Bill 261), which would ban the sales and distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone.

State Rep. Andrew Sorrell, R-Muscle Shoals, the lead sponsor of the bill, said chemical abortions, or drug-induced abortions, are a growing trend that threatens the sanctity of human life.

“We think of abortion as going to an abortion facility and having a surgical abortion. But the new trend in abortion is chemical abortion,” he told the committee, according to the report.

In the bill, Sorrell pointed to research that found the complication rate from the abortion drug is four times higher than from a surgical abortion. The bill also refers to a state constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2018 recognizing that unborn babies should have a right to life.

LifeNews depends on the support of readers like you to combat the pro-abortion media. Please donate now.

However, the ACLU of Alabama quickly criticized the bill, claiming it is just another attempt to restrict women’s health care.

“Study after study has found that this medication is safer than either Tylenol or Viagra. Let’s call this bill what it is: another excuse for the Alabama Legislature to play doctor and meddle in the healthcare options available to people in this state,” ACLU attorney Kaitlin Welborn said in a statement.

The abortion drug is the opposite of safe. Its purpose is to kill a baby in the womb by blocking the pregnancy hormone progesterone. A new report from the Guttmacher Institute found that the abortion drug now is being used for more than half of all abortions in the U.S.

A growing body of research indicates the drug is not safe for mothers either. The Food and Drug Administration has linked the abortion drug to at least 24 women’s deaths and 4,000 serious complications between 2000 and 2018. However, under President Barack Obama, the FDA stopped requiring that non-fatal complications from mifepristone be reported. So the numbers almost certainly are much higher.

Recent British NHS health data shows a massive hospitalization rate due to abortion drugs after the government began allowing mail-order abortion drugs in 2020. According to the data, more than 10,000 women who received the abortion drugs by mail needed hospital treatment in 2020, or about one in 17 women.

As a result, this week, the British Department of Health and Social Care announced that it will begin requiring in-person appointments again for the abortion drug.

In the United States, a 2021 study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the rate of abortion-related emergency room visits by women taking the abortion drug increased more than 500 percent between 2002 and 2015.

A 2009 study “Immediate Complications After Medical Compared With Surgical Termination of Pregnancy,” in “Obstetrics and Gynecology” found a complication rate of approximately 20 percent for the abortion drugs compared to 5.6 percent for surgical abortions. Hemorrhages and incomplete abortions were among the most common complications.

Despite these risks, late last year, the Biden administration began allowing abortion businesses to sell the drug through the mail without ever even seeing the woman.

In response, many state lawmakers are taking action this year to restrict or ban abortion drugs in their states.