FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 3, 2017
Contact: Mallory Quigley, [email protected] 202-223-8073
Doctors, Pro-life Advocates Slam the ACLU & Abortion Industry for Reckless Lawsuit
Washington, D.C. – The national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) and its research and education arm, the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), today strongly rebuked the American Civil Liberties Union for suing to loosen FDA regulation of the abortion drug known as Mifeprex (mifepristone) and make it available by prescription in commercial pharmacies without a physician visit.
“The profit-driven abortion industry pushes dangerous abortion drugs at the expense of women’s health and safety,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Nor can the industry be trusted to respect the conscience and good medical judgment of pharmacists and other medical professionals. This reckless lawsuit would end safeguards for women from powerful drugs promoted for profit. Abortion is not health care and no pharmacy or hospital should have to provide abortion-inducing drugs.”
Dr. Donna Harrison, Executive Director of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and an Associate Scholar with CLI, added:
“It is a fantasy that the abortion drug is safe, and this fantasy is driving loosening the safety requirements that the FDA put in place when Mifeprex was approved. Mifeprex has four times more complications than surgical abortion. Roughly one out of every twenty women end up in the emergency room or require surgery to complete the failed abortion, and these rates increase the further along in pregnancy that the abortion takes place. The push to allow pharmacy prescription is driven by the desire of the abortion industry to not have to physically see patients in the office, but rather to be able to call in prescriptions without seeing the patient. This is horrible care for women, and women will suffer.”
CLI experts have previously criticized flawed research purporting to show that self-administered, self-reported chemical abortions are not dangerous to women.
Susan B. Anthony List and its partner super PAC, Women Speak Out spent more than $18 million in the 2016 election cycle, knocking on more than 1.1 million doors in battleground states to defeat Hillary Clinton and maintain a pro-life Senate. SBA List is dedicated to pursuing policies and electing candidates who will reduce and ultimately end abortion. To that end, the SBA List emphasizes the education, promotion, mobilization, and election of pro-life women. The SBA List is a network of more than 600,000 pro-life Americans nationwide.
Charlotte Lozier Institute was launched in 2011 as the education and research arm of Susan B. Anthony List. CLI is a hub for research and public policy analysis on some of the most pressing issues facing the United States and nations around the world. The Institute is named for a feminist physician known for her commitment to the sanctity of human life and equal career and educational opportunities for women.
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