Breaking: Congress Introduces Women's Protection in Telehealth Act
This week Representative Greg Steube (R-FL 17) introduced a new bill, the Women’s Protection in Telehealth Act, that would prohibit the use of Medicare funds from going to health care providers who use telehealth for abortion services.
In January 2023, the FDA permanently removed the in-person dispensing requirement for chemical abortion pills, enabling abortions on demand without in-person medical supervision.
In many states, telehealth for abortions and mail order abortion drugs are being funded by state taxpayer dollars through state medical programs. A number of states have declared abortion as “protected healthcare” thus ensuring abortion access for minor children without parental notification or consent. Many states have even passed “abortion trafficking” laws, allowing and protecting minors coming from out of state for abortion pills and procedures. Washington state even passed a bill this year designed to “protect” abortion providers, allowing them to leave their name off the prescription label. This legislation would ensure that no federal dollars are being used to pay for telehealth abortions.
From Rep Steube’s press release:
The legislation ensures no payment may be made under the Medicare program to a health care provider who knowingly provides or attempts to provide a chemical abortion without a physician physically examining the patient, without being physically present at the location of the chemical abortion, and without scheduling a follow-up visit for the patient. If a provider provides a single teleabortion service, they would be entirely ineligible from Medicare participation for any service.
“I believe in the right to life for our country’s most vulnerable citizens, our children. While all abortions are horrific, progressive leftists want abortions to be as easy as online shopping with same-day delivery. Teleabortions have exploded in the last few years, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Supreme Court’s rightful decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. As abortionists circumvent state laws to end the lives of unborn children, telehealth must not be weaponized to terminate a human life,” said Rep. Steube. “Medicare dollars have no place funding providers who enable ‘Do it yourself’ unsupervised chemical abortions. My legislation seeks to end this dangerous, morally wrong practice by preventing Medicare from paying telehealth abortionists.”
The dangers of mifepristone (the abortion pill) are very real and they are quite common. The FDA’s own data shows that roughly one in 25 women who take mifepristone will end up in the emergency room.
Mifepristone requires a black box warning label, a serious warning given by the FDA for drugs or drug classes that may cause serious harm or death. The FDA’s medication guide acknowledges that as many as 7 percent of women will need surgery after taking mifepristone ‘to stop bleeding’ or to complete the abortion.
The label also warns that a prescriber must ‘[e]xclude [ectopic pregnancy] before treatment,’…’because some of the expected symptoms experienced with a medical abortion (abdominal pain, uterine bleeding) may be similar to those of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.’ If women are being prescribed mifepristone through telehealth services there is no way a provider can ensure they are not giving the drug to a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy.
63% of Americans oppose mail order prescriptions for abortion. Even 43% of pro-choice respondents expressed that abortion pills should have more provider oversight.
Most Americans, even those who would call themselves “pro choice”, believe there should be guardrails on abortion. Abortion on demand, at any time for any reason, with little oversight and paid for by taxpayers is not acceptable to most Americans. Representative Steube’s bill is common sense legislation and would be a very positive step in protecting women and girls. We hope to see this bill move forward in the House.
*The text of this bill is not yet available. We will update this post as soon as it is.
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