Janine Jackson interviewed Guttmacher Institute’s Rachel K. Jones about the Mifepristone ruling for the April 21, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: As we record on Thursday, April 20, the US Supreme Court has extended, until tomorrow, its decision on whether reproductive rights will be severely curtailed, including in so-called “blue states,” by restricting access to Mifepristone, approved for more than 20 years as part of a medical method of terminating pregnancies.
The Washington Post tells readers:
The Biden administration, abortion providers and anti-abortion activists, drug makers and the Food and Drug Administration have engaged in a rapid and at times confusing legal battle over Mifepristone.
Well, that suggests a sort of informational free-for-all, in the face of an actual disinformation campaign on the part of a minority of Americans opposed to the right to choose when and whether to have a child.
To the extent that there is any cloudiness around the science or the human rights involved here, one would hope that journalists would sort it, and not throw up their hands.
Rachel K. Jones is principal research scientist at Guttmacher Institute, the research and policy group focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights. She joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Rachel Jones.
Rachel K. Jones: Yeah, thank you for inviting me.
JJ: Very narrowly, this Supreme Court case is about the authority of the FDA to approve drugs. But anybody paying attention can see that it’s actually about much more.
I wonder if you could just tell us a bit, first, about the impact of the introduction of medication abortion; it’s been 20 years now. What has that meant in terms of the ability of people to access abortion, and how widely is it used?
RJ: Right. So we know from decades of medical research that Mifepristone is safe, effective and widely accepted by both patients and providers, and Guttmacher’s own research has established that the majority of abortions are done with medication abortions, 53% in 2020.
JJ: So what would we expect, I mean immediately, and then maybe longer term, if this effort to make Mifepristone unavailable, if that were to actually go through, what sort of impacts would you be expecting?
RJ: OK, so there’s actually a lot that we don’t know about what’s going to happen or what would happen if the Supreme Court were to impose restrictions on Mifepristone. But, again, it’s important to recognize that any restrictions that are put in place are not based on medical science.
We do know that any restrictions that were put in place would have a devastating impact on abortion access. Again, 53% of abortions are medication abortions. Currently, only 55% of women in the US live in a county that has an abortion provider. And if Mifepristone were taken away, that number would drop to 51.
But there are 10 states that would have a substantially larger, notable impact. So about 40% of clinics in the US only offer medication abortion. And so, again, there’s 10 states where if these clinics were taken away, if these providers were taken away, substantially large proportions of people would no longer have access to abortion.
And some of these are states that are actually supportive of abortion rights, states like Colorado, Washington, New Mexico and, again, just one example: In Colorado, it’s currently the case that 82% of women live in a county that has an abortion provider. If Mifepristone were no longer available, this number would drop to 56%.
JJ: I think it’s important, the way that Guttmacher links health and rights, and the way that your work shows that access—sometimes media present it as though we’re talking about “the United States,” and rights to access abortion in the United States, but it varies very much, as you’re just indicating, by region, by state, and then also by socioeconomic status. So there are a number of things to consider here in terms of this potential impact, yeah?
RJ: Definitely. Again, we know, from decades of Guttmacher research on people who have abortions, that it’s people in disadvantaged populations—low-income populations, people of color—who access abortion at higher rates than other groups.
And so, by default, any restriction on abortion, whether it’s a complete ban, a gestational ban, a ban on a certain type of method, on a medication abortion, it’s going to disproportionately impact these groups that are already, again, at a disadvantage.
JJ: And I think particularly when we’re talking about medication abortion, if you know, you know. If you never thought about it, then maybe you never thought about it. But there’s a difference between having to go to a clinic, where maybe you’re going to go through a phalanx of red-faced people screaming at you, and the ability to access that care in other ways. It’s an important distinction, yeah?
RJ: Definitely. You know, one of the benefits of medication abortion, of Mifepristone, is that it can be offered via telemedicine. If there’s a consultation, it can be done online or over the phone, and then the drugs can be mailed to somebody. There are online pharmacies that can provide medication abortion.
This means that people, right, don’t have to, in some cases, travel hundreds of miles to get to a clinic, that they don’t have to worry about childcare, and taking off time from work.
So medication abortion has the ability to—and has, for a number of people—made abortion more accessible.
JJ: If you talk to staunch anti-abortion people, the conversation is very rarely about science or about medicine. But then, some of them, and their media folks, will throw around terms that sort of suggest that they’re being science-y. You know, they’ll talk about “viability” or “heartbeat,” or they’ll say it’s about concern about the safety of drugs.
And I just wonder, as a scientist who actually is immersed in this stuff, what do you make of the reporting on the medical reality of abortion, and would more knowledge help inform the broader conversation? Or is it just two different conversations? What do you think?
Rachel K. Jones: “We have decades of scientific medical research establishing that medication abortion is safe, effective and widely accepted.”
RJ: I definitely think it’s two different conversations. Like I said, we have decades of scientific medical research establishing that medication abortion is safe, effective and widely accepted. People who don’t support abortion choose to ignore the science and the safety, and dig for their own factoids and supposed scientific facts to support their arguments.
JJ: It’s so strange how the media debate always seems to start again and again at point zero, as though there were no facts in the matter, or no experience, and as though women aren’t experts on their own experience, you know?
Well, finally, we see things like the Women’s Health Protection Act federalizing the right to abortion. I know the law is not necessarily your purview, but in terms of responding to these court moves, and these state level moves, do you think that federal action is the way to go?
RJ: Certainly that is one solution, right? The Women’s Health Protection Act would enshrine the right to abortion federally.
But we also need, and especially in the current environment…. I don’t want to say the Women’s Health Protection Act is pie in the sky, but given everything that’s going on right now, we also need federal and state policy makers to step up to restore, protect and expand access to abortion.
Quite frankly, the right to abortion was removed because of Roe, and that allows states to impose pretty much any restriction that they want to, we’re seeing from all these different laws that are being implemented.
And so it really is, a lot of times, at the state level, and then certainly in the current environment, the state level is what we might need to focus on.
JJ: And then anything you would like to see more of, or less of, from journalism in this regard?
RJ: On medication abortion, it seems like the media are actually doing a decent job of covering the issue, of acknowledging, again, the decades of research showing that medication abortion is safe, effective and commonly used.
I guess the only issue we might have is one that you see any time that abortion is the subject of media stories, and that is, a lot of times, reporters think, well, if they have to take a fair and balanced approach, that means that they have to talk to the people who oppose abortion.
And again, when this is about science and facts and research, then you don’t need to talk to people who don’t believe in sound science, or who are going to ignore, again, decades of solid medical research.
JJ: All right then. We’ve been speaking with Rachel K. Jones, principal research scientist at Guttmacher Institute. You can find their myriad resources online at Guttmacher.org. Thank you so much, Rachel Jones, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
RJ: Sure. Thank you for having me.
I am in full support of women’s reproductive rights with abortion being freely available to all as it is here in the UK. But morally, I’m ambivalent, as all sides in this bitter argument seem not to have a convincing lead, not least over the basic question: when does a foetus become human and gain the right to life, and why?
Dear Rebecca, your very sincere question deserves a nuanced reply…. We can say that the fetus is a “human fetus,” but it is not yet a “human person,” personhood requiring sentience, consciousness, the capacity to consciously sense, perceive, relate and respond inter-personally. That’s why the majority of society no longer considers it “murder” to take off life support a “former person” who is now in a “persistent vegetative state” (PVS) of insentience and unconsciousness.
Question: In a housefire— which do you rush to save first, your pets or your plants?
Every person of sound mind and morals says, “Of course I save the pets first.” Why? Because they are *sentient beings.*
Plants have no nervous system and are not sentient. They are *alive,* but *not sentient.*
And of course embryos and then fetuses up to 18-20 weeks are not sentient, either— not until a fetus develops an incipient, inter-connected nervous system somewhere around the 5th month of pregnancy.
Until then, the fetus is *insentient.* It is *alive,” but *not sentient.*
So, coming back to your Q, it’s not enough to talk about when a fetus “becomes human.” Up until sometime during the fifth month, it is already an alive human fetus, but it is not yet a sentient life, a consciousness, or in any reasonable form a “person,” a person entitled to or deserving rights.
And on this point, all omnivores must ask themselves: given that nearly all animals in the food system are *fully sentient beings,” i.e., they are nonhuman animal *persons,* what right have we to confine, torture and murder them for their milk, eggs and meat?
I hope all this reasoning clarifies some points.
Best wishes to you….
It does help, but it raises more questions, given that abortion is permitted up to birth. As the anti-abortion movement never ceases pointing out, there is little if any difference in terms of sentience between the foetus ‘terminated’ after, say, eight months of development, and many children successfully delivered. The arguments many in the pro-choice movement use are strongly resisted by many in the disability rights movement, which also applies in the euthanasia debate.
You raise a valid point about animals, but that of course raises the same point as with abortion: which animals are worthy of protection? All agriculture, even organic and arable, depends on denying animals their natural environment which no doubt leads to their deaths.
This ambiguity is why I am unconvinced by any of the moral arguments around abortion.
Another aspect that does not get much attention is the stress that is put on women, who do not want a child, creates hormones that affect the development of the child. Just as Alcohol – Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder creates individuals who have a hard time learning and behavioral problems so do children born under constant stress. These children are more prone to end up in civil or criminal court. Read “Freakonomics” chapter 4 for more information. In this book, the authors show how the passage Roe v Wade helped to lower the crime rate after it’s passage. Besides, it is still up to the woman to decide for herself if she wants a child or not.
I don’t want abortion to be safe; I want abortion to be outlawed. If a murderer dies in the course of her crime, I call that justice. I do want women who died from abortions to be on billboards as a warning that says, “This is what could happen to you if you seek an illegal abortion.”
Safe for whom? I think in the name of fairness, you should report all the findings that the embryo is in reality a living human being, whose life is cut short by an abortion. Those who argue about its safety only look at the side of the woman seeking abortion, while denying the reality of a child thru euphemisms like zygote ane embryo.