Another Skirmish in the War on Women

The Republican-controlled Minnesota state legislature recently passed bills requiring women to take RU 486 (mifepristone, or the abortion pill) in the physical presence of a doctor. It's common practice for this drug to be administered via video conferencing.

Republicans claim that this is to protect women's health, but it's obviously just another bogus road block to prevent women from getting abortions. According to the bill's sponsor, Joyce Peppin:

This bill is about women’s health, Just a few statistics about this type of drug: 14 deaths, 612 hospitalizations, 58 ectopic pregnancies. That’s something to be taken seriously.

What Peppin neglects to mention is that these 14 deaths occurred over 10 years, between September, 2001 and April, 2011. According to the FDA 1.52 million women used the drug and 14 died: eight of those deaths were due to Chlostridium infections and the rest were due to illegal drug overdose, methadone overdose, murder, toxic shock and septic shock. Even if you include the questionably attributed cases, that's only 0.9 deaths per 100,000.

By comparison, the death rate for Viagra is about 5 out of every 100,000. A fact which led Phyllis Kahn to make an amendment to require men take Viagra under the supervision of a physician.

What's even more outrageous is the mortality rate among pregnant women in the United States:

Maternal mortality ratios have increased from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006. While some of the recorded increase is due to improved data collection, the fact remains that maternal mortality ratios have risen significantly

Yes, a pregnant woman is 15 times more likely to die if she brings a child to term than if she uses mifepristone. By comparison, the death rate for people taking aspirin and other NSAIDs is between 21 and 24 deaths per 100,000, and the death rate for Tylenol is 150 or more per 100,000.

Why do we have all these maternal deaths? Basically, lack of health insurance, family planning services and prenatal care. Since a pregnant woman has a preexisting condition, insurance companies will be able to deny pregnant women insurance until the ACA takes full effect.

Mifepristone is one of the safest drugs on the market. Why? It's just a big dose of contraceptive hormones that cause the uterine lining to shed, something which happens naturally every month. This also happens spontaneously in a quarter (and some sources say as much as 50 or 75%) of all pregnancies, resulting in miscarriages, or spontaneous abortions.

So when these people claim that they're passing all these laws to protect women's health, they're lying. They're really pushing a religious or political agenda attacking women's freedoms and rights.