September 24, 2021
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Governor Abbott to sign bill into law that limits medication abortion usage - ArkLaTexHomepage

FILE – This Sept. 22, 2010 file photo shows bottles of the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 in Des Moines, Iowa. In 2021, about 40% of all abortions in the U.S. are now done through medication — rather than surgery — and that option has become all the more pivotal during the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Gov. Greg Abbott is set to sign a bill Friday that will limit the use of medication abortion after seven weeks and prohibit sending such pills through the mail altogether.

Republicans argue SB4 will protect women’s health, saying in-person ultrasounds will ensure doctors can monitor patients better.

But Democrats think the seven-week ban will push women who want an abortion to seek it elsewhere without supervision.

“This bill will push some women to seek black market options to receive the medication. And as always, our choice is not between abortion and no abortion. It’s between safe legal abortion or unsafe illegal abortion,” Rep. Zwiener said in July.

Medication abortion was first approved by the FDA in 2000. This method accounted for 39 percent of all abortions in the United States in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organization.

While SB4 will no longer allow physicians to send abortion-inducing pills to Texas women through the mail, the Guttmacher Institute says “decades of clinical evidence suggest that medication abortion can even be provided without laboratory tests or ultrasound prior to administration, opening up further possibilities for service delivery.”

This legislation will join another anti-abortion law that went into effect on Sept. 1. SB8 bans all surgical abortions after a fetal cardiac activity is detected, which can be as early as six weeks — a time when most people do not know they are pregnant.

Texas abortion providers and reproductive rights advocates filed a request Thursday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up their challenge to the state’s near-abortion ban before it heads to a federal appellate court. It is unknown whether the high court will decline or grant their request.

Governor Greg Abbott will sign SB4 into law and deliver remarks at the Texas Values Policy Forum in Austin at 3:30 p.m.

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source: https://www.arklatexhomepage.com/news/governor-abbott-to-sign-bill-into-law-that-limits-medication-abortion-usage/

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