{"id":324234,"date":"2025-01-09T08:43:21","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T14:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=324234"},"modified":"2025-01-09T12:52:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T18:52:27","slug":"washington-pharmacists-prescribed-abortion-pill-protocol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/washington-pharmacists-prescribed-abortion-pill-protocol\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington pharmacists who prescribed abortion pill didn’t follow usual no-test protocol"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last year, Washington state announced<\/a> a pilot program allowing pharmacists to prescribe abortion pills, without women seeing a doctor first. This week, nearly a year later, the results of the pilot program \u2014 which prescribed abortion pills to 43 women \u2014 were released<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to NPR<\/a>, the program was committed in conjunction with Uplift International<\/a>, a pro-abortion health care group, which partnered<\/a> with Honeybee Health, a mail-order abortion pill company. Initially, Washington pharmacists said<\/a> they lacked “sufficient knowledge of medication abortion, which is not covered by pharmacy school curricula,” but the program went forward anyway.<\/p>\n

The Pharmacist Abortion Access Project reported that the program was conducted between October 31 and November 26, with 10 pharmacists across Washington, who prescribed abortion pills to 43 patients. Women were eligible if they were 18, could provide a Washington state mailing address (with no requirement to prove actual residency<\/a>), and were up to 10 weeks pregnant. They paid a mere $40 for the pills, and completed online forms giving information about their pregnancies and medical histories. They then received the pills from Honeybee Health.<\/p>\n

Program put more safeguards in place than most women receive<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Interestingly, women who participated in the pilot program received more<\/em> care than they do from most certified abortion pill prescribers. As the New York Times explained (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Don Downing, a co-director of the project and a professor emeritus of pharmacy at the University of Washington, said that in addition to providing a hotline for questions or concerns, pharmacists had contacted patients to see how they were doing, asking questions like: \u201cHave you had excessive bleeding or no bleeding? Do you have fever, pain, whatever?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He said that during the follow-up, patients had asked typical questions, like whether they were experiencing appropriate levels of bleeding from passing the pregnancy tissue. \u201cWe did not have any seriously negative outcomes at all, but we had a full network of other resources available in case that happened, so that we could take care of them,\u201d<\/strong> he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jessica Nouhavandi, a pharmacist and president of Honeybee Health, as well as co-director of the pilot program, even specifically said they were more thorough than the typical protocol for dispensing abortion pills. \u201cWe went a little deeper about medical history,\u201d she said. \u201cWe wanted our pharmacists to feel more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uplift International CEO Dr. Beth Rivin told The Washington Standard<\/a> that the training protocol was created “with Dr. Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington” and “has a list of clinics where patients can be referred if any in-person follow-up care is necessary, including ultrasounds, blood tests or other exams<\/strong>” (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf (patients) had questions, the platform allowed for messaging between the pharmacist and the individual, and patients were followed up with at one week and four to five weeks after prescriptions were written,\u201d Rivin said.<\/p>\n

What the pharmacists in this program did for these 43 women went far beyond<\/em> anything<\/em> that women obtaining pills online or from brick-and-mortar facilities would typically receive. When women undergo abortions, they rarely receive follow-up care, particularly not if they undergo the dangerous no-test protocol.<\/p>\n

Instead, other women who obtain the abortion pill typically receive no referrals; they visit ERs or urgent care facilities if they experience complications.<\/p>\n

Risks of the abortion pill<\/h3>\n

The abortion industry has been promoting the no-test protocol<\/a> for chemical abortions for years, despite the risks.<\/p>\n

Peer-reviewed studies<\/a> have found risks of side effects<\/a> after chemical abortions, including hemorrhage, sepsis, and death. The abortion pill regimen has been found to be four times more dangerous<\/a> than first-trimester surgical abortions, and the FDA\u2019s 2023 mifepristone label<\/a> states that 2.9 to 4.6% of women who take it report to the emergency room for complications. Another study<\/a> further confirmed that 6% of women who participated had abortion pill complications severe enough to visit either an urgent care center or a hospital emergency room. Another study<\/a> found that women are not properly prepared for the amount of pain they experience during chemical abortions.<\/p>\n

Without a pre-abortion ultrasound, prescribers may not be able to rule out contraindications like ectopic pregnancy (which is life-threatening if left untreated), and are utilizing a woman’s best guess about her last menstrual period \u2014 which could miscalculate gestational age. Furthermore, mifepristone, the first drug in the two-drug abortion pill regimen, has a black box warning<\/a> about various potential side effects, including sepsis. The symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy may not always be obvious<\/a>, and a no-test protocol with the lack of a physical exam puts women at risk.<\/p>\n

In addition to these problems, prescribing the abortion pill without any in-person visit puts women at a greater risk of coercion<\/a>.<\/p>\n