{"id":252205,"date":"2021-08-31T08:43:52","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T13:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=252205"},"modified":"2021-08-30T16:51:04","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T21:51:04","slug":"telehealth-abortions-significant-health-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/telehealth-abortions-significant-health-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Teleheath\u2019 abortions come with significant health risks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(National Review<\/a>)\u00a0Earlier this month, more than 70 Democrats in the House introduced a resolution<\/a> asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to permanently lift in-person requirements for chemical-abortion drugs.<\/p>\n

Over the past year and a half, supporters of legal abortion have used the COVID-19 pandemic to expand access to chemical abortion. In 2020, pro-abortion groups litigated against existing FDA rules, which had required that chemical abortions take place under medical supervision. While those abortion proponents received a favorable ruling from a U.S. district court judge in July of last year, the Supreme Court ruled this past January that the FDA\u2019s protective rules could remain in place.<\/p>\n

But in April, under the direction of the Biden administration, the FDA lifted existing restrictions on telemedicine abortions for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

In their reporting on this resolution, legacy media outlets such as The Hill<\/em><\/a> and and NBC News<\/a> promoted the pro-abortion spin that chemical abortions are safe. A number of outlets and pundits cited studies claiming that telehealth abortions do not pose health risks to women. Gizmodo<\/em><\/a> and Ms.<\/em> Magazine<\/em><\/a>, for instance, covered a new study from JAMA Network Open<\/em>, which purports to show that a small percentage of women who obtained a telehealth abortions from a virtual clinic in California required additional medical care. Writing for the New York Times,<\/em> Emily Bazelon highlighted<\/a> a February study<\/a> in the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology<\/em> that analyzed data from British women and found that telehealth abortions had low complication rates.<\/p>\n

However, both of these studies have methodological shortcomings. The JAMA Network Open <\/em>study analyzed only 141 women who obtained telehealth abortions, a smaller sample size than is typical for this type of study. Furthermore, of the 141 patients who obtained telehealth abortions, 13 patients did not respond to a follow-up survey, and the researchers were unable to obtain information about outcomes from another 18 patients. As a result, the researchers have no information about outcomes from more than 20 percent of the women who obtained chemical abortions, raising concerns about the reliability of the study\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n