Planned Parenthood announced this week that it has begun offering chemical abortions at its Wichita, Kansas clinic via telemedicine, which is where an off-site doctor chats with a patient online and then prescribes abortion-causing drugs for the woman to take without a medical professional's supervision.
Planned Parenthood Great Plains President and CEO Emily Wales said the immediate goal is to have more days that patients can go there to get medication abortions, and her affiliate hopes to offer the service to patients visiting its other two clinics on the Kansas side of the Kansas City area "in short order" and eventually to allow patients in doctors' offices and clinics across the state to teleconference with its physicians.
Pro-lifers have long argued that telemedicine bans protect women's health by ensuring a physician is present to deal with major problems, and Jeanne Gawdun of Kansans for Life tells AFN lawmakers know it is dangerous medicine.
"As our legislature not once, not even twice, but several times has stated … telemedicine abortions are dangerous," she relays. "They're not good medicine, which is why the legislature several times with a majority of both chambers [has been] in support saying that it requires an administration by a physician in person."
But now, Kansas courts have overturned those laws.
Gawdun says there are reasons why a pregnant woman needs to bee seen in person before she is prescribed abortion drugs.
"Abortionists must be able to accurately date how far along that unborn child is, because the FDA states that it should be no longer than 10 weeks," the pro-lifer explains.
The baby's gestational age, she says, can be better determined by an ultrasound.
"The FDA also says that the abortionist must be able to determine where that unborn child is located," Gawdun adds, noting that attempting to chemically abort an ectopic pregnancy is especially dangerous for the woman.
That is another thing that can only be determined by a sonogram.
So with this action, Gawdun expects that hospital emergency rooms in Kansas will be seeing an increase in women suffering the dangerous effects of chemical abortion.
18 states have bans on telemedicine abortions in place. They include Arizona, Indiana, Nebraska, and North Carolina.
