The state of Texas filed a major lawsuit on Dec. 12 against a New York doctor who mailed abortion pills to a Collin County, Texas, woman, arguing that the doctor was practicing medicine without a Texas license and violating the state’s abortion ban. The suit raises messy legal questions about whether one state can haul a doctor abiding by the law in another state into its courts, or enforce a judgment if it wins. More than that, however, the suit is a window into the next battlefield over abortion rights — and how abortion pills and telemedicine are reshaping the politics of abortion in America.
The antiabortion movement’s endgame is establishing fetal personhood — the idea that life and constitutional rights begin at the moment sperm fertilizes an egg. It has been a focal point of the movement’s efforts for 50 years.
But with blue states and many red states reaffirming a right to abortion, fetal personhood doesn’t seem like it’s going to come to pass anytime soon. In the meantime, abortion opponents have set their sights on shutting down access to abortion pills.
Here’s why: Medication abortion has made it difficult to enforce abortion bans in the states where they exist. Studies show an increase in the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. Abortion pills also make it harder to frighten doctors and harder to stigmatize the termination of pregnancy.
When all abortions were surgical, the procedure had to take place in bricks-and-mortar facilities. The clinics became targets for protest and sometimes violence and vandalism. Abortion pills, however, can be prescribed remotely, through a telehealth consultation, and they are taken at home very early in a pregnancy. Pills make abortion more private, distancing patients from clinic protests. Along with backlash against the reversal of Roe, the nature of medication abortion seems to be reshaping how Americans think about terminating a pregnancy: The number of those who see abortion as a moral decision has increased in recent years.