The Patriot Post® · Abortion: Quick and Convenient?

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s now-infamous Dobbs decision last June, abortion has become the sacred cow of Democrat politics. Although the Court’s action is heartily detested by Democrats, widespread discontent about it carried them to stunning success in the 2022 midterm elections. Understandably, they’re not about to let it go now.

For the record (still necessary because the matter is so frequently misinterpreted or misstated), the Court did not make abortion illegal. It simply confirmed what even the most strident partisans already knew: that abortion is not addressed, overtly or implicitly, in the U.S. Constitution. It’s just not there.

And for those who rail at the unelected jurists’ assault on democracy, please recognize that exactly the opposite is true. The Court put abortion back in the hands of elected legislators, exactly where it belongs, in what was by far the most democratic disposition possible for that ever-contentious issue.

The most recent high-visibility eruption of Democrat fury on the abortion front was prompted by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling invalidating the FDA’s longstanding approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.

Kacsmaryk’s aggressive ruling didn’t last long. It was quickly put on hold by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, with objections likely to be upheld by further review. Democrats went nuts anyway.

Based on that one ruling, Judge Kacsmaryk earned a lifetime of notoriety, mountains of negative press, allegations of hidden rabid anti-abortion bias and other extremist views, and assertions that he withheld important information from a U.S. Senate committee. The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus dubbed Kacsmaryk the “worst federal judge in America” — too harsh a label perhaps for a jurist no one had ever heard of before, but it seems to be sticking.

My own amateurish guess is that the judge’s ruling will be overruled on appeal, simply because the accumulated data from mifepristone use by millions over a 23-year period should be a more than adequate basis for determining its safety (at least for the mother) today.

We’ll see how it holds up in appeals court. But as we wade through the hullaballoo of outrage and handwringing about it, several salient points jump right out and beg for consideration.

Although mifepristone was initially approved for use in 2000, in 2017 and again this year the FDA changed the rules for its distribution in very significant ways. Instead of being available only through an in-person visit to a doctors’ office or licensed health center, the revised FDA rules now allow for the drug to be purchased online, even from retail pharmacy chains, and authorized only by prescription from a health provider (not necessarily a medical doctor).

Proponents of mifepristone argue that those relaxed provisions are entirely appropriate for a demonstrably safe medication. But given that abortion is a life-altering decision for the woman — and life-ending for the unborn child — is it unreasonable to require a more substantive process than ordering a new T-shirt from Amazon?

And should the process not be more secure as well? Mifepristone is considered safe for use up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, but for a package that just shows up on the doorstep, there’s little certainty about who will use it, when, and where.

More importantly, the Kacsmaryk ruling and the turmoil that followed serves as just one more reminder that, for all the attention to the woman’s health aspects of abortion, rarely is there any mention of the other life in the equation for whom abortion by any means is 100% deadly. Instead, critics such as Ms. Marcus and others take him to task for his use of the uncomfortable words like “unborn child.”

That seemed to me like a pretty lame criticism until my Internet search came across a remarkable document called ACOG Guide to Language and Abortion, through which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists suggests words about reproductive health that are “medically appropriate and without bias.”

Per ACOG, a pregnant person (not woman) is initially carrying an embryo, which (if still in residence, and right up until the moment of natural birth) is properly called a fetus. ACOG recommends that while the embryo/fetus is in the pregnant person’s uterus (not womb), there should be no reference to its possible future as a human being.

So, there you have it. According to some, abortion is all about removal of an embryo or fetus from a pregnant person’s body, to protect that person’s health. It should be quick, convenient, and impersonal. And as long as you never allow yourself to slip into the sappy visualization of a little baby cooing and crying, you’ll be fine.

I’d argue just the opposite — that whether for or against abortion, only by acknowledging its reality and human import can we reach a widely acceptable resolution to the dilemma it presents.