Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Tuesday issued an executive order restricting abortion inducing drugs, requiring that they be picked up in person at a doctor's office.
In April, in order to advance the Democrats’ baby-killing agenda, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted restrictions on sending abortion-inducing drugs through the mail, claiming that sending the drugs remotely through telemedicine did not increase risk.
Apparently, the risk to the unborn child doesn’t count.
As our friends at LifeNews.com observed, when COVID first hit the United States, many abortion centers pushed webcam abortions — abortions where a pregnant woman does not get an in-person visit with an actual doctor before getting the dangerous abortion pill. An in-person exam is recommended because the abortion pill is only able to be used at certain times during pregnancy and can be lethal for women with ectopic pregnancies or with various medical conditions. The pill has already killed over two dozen women across the country and injured thousands more.
As reported by the Rapid City Journal, Governor Noem’s Executive Order:
Declaring that abortion drugs may only be prescribed or dispensed by a physician who is licensed in South Dakota after an in-person examination;
Blocking abortion-inducing drugs from being provided via courier, delivery, telemedicine, or mail service;
Preventing abortion-inducing drugs from being dispensed or provided in schools or on state grounds; and
Reiterating that licensed physicians must ensure that Informed Consent laws are properly administered.
The executive order also directs the Department of Health to:
Develop licensing requirements for “pill only” abortion clinics;
Collect empirical data on how often chemical abortions are performed as a percentage of all abortions, including how often women experience complications that require a medical follow-up; and
Enhance reporting requirements on emergency room complications related to chemical abortion.
In summary, the key point of the order says that no manufacturers, suppliers or physicians will supply abortion drugs via telemedicine or mail service. They also cannot be provided in any school or on state grounds, including colleges and universities.
In promulgating the order Governor Noem noted that the "abortion industry" is targeting young women in South Dakota and directed the South Dakota Department of Health to "develop an abortion clinic license specific to the pharmaceutical nature of medical abortion in keeping with South Dakota's existing surgical abortion clinic licensing requirements."
LifeNews.com reported leading pro-life advocates thanked the governor for her pro-life action.
“We commend Governor Noem for taking this bold action that will save lives from dangerous chemical abortions, which have a fourfold higher rate of complications compared to surgical abortion,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List. “The Biden administration would turn every post office and pharmacy into an abortion center if they had their way, leaving women alone and at risk of severe heavy bleeding, physical, emotional, and psychological stress, and more. States must take action. Governor Noem is setting a courageous model today that we hope more state leaders across the nation will soon follow.”
“I applaud Governor Noem’s action today to stop dangerous chemical abortion drugs from being mailed to South Dakota women,” said Catherine Glenn Foster, President and CEO of Americans United for Life. “This is no longer about ‘a woman and her doctor,’ but a woman – or girl – and a stranger on the internet. States can no longer depend on the FDA to regulate abortion drugs in any meaningful way, and I am pleased to see Governor Noem step up for her state. Abortion is never safe, but it’s far more dangerous when women are abandoned by physicians and left to manage their complications alone.”
Governor Noem's order makes it clear she expects the Legislature to make her order into law next year. She charged that the Biden administration was moving to leverage telemedicine abortions to undermine state laws and make it easier to have an abortion.
“They are working right now to make it easier to end the life of an unborn child via telemedicine abortion," Noem said in a statement reported by Yahoo News. "That is not going to happen in South Dakota.”
Gov. Kristi Noem executive order
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