In a ruling related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late Tuesday that pregnant women must make an in-person visit with a doctor before obtaining a chemical abortion pill.
The high court’s ruling comes years after the federal Food and Drug Administration advised that women require a face-to-face visit with a physician, most often an abortionist, before taking the pill.
Pro-life activists such as Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life Committee, are praising the ruling after they witnessed a federal judge rule that women, during the pandemic, can have the medicine sent to them for what Tobias calls a “do-it-yourself, at-home abortion.”
"I think it is a great decision from the Supreme Court,” Tobias tells One News Now, “and I am thrilled that it was a 6-3 decision.”
Tobias
The celebration may be short-lived, however, since the incoming administration led by President-elect Joe Biden could put the in-person requirement on hold at FDA after Biden takes office January 20.
The federal judge suspended the FDA rule last summer and, in October, the Supreme Court allowed women to continue getting the abortion pill by mail but deferred any substantive ruling at the time.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang affirmed the suspension of the rule in December.
Reacting to the ruling, Thomas Glessner, who leads the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, said the court ruled to protect women from dangerous abortion drugs.
“This ruling represents a major pro-life victory against an abortion industry that consistently puts profit margins ahead of the welfare of mothers and unborn babies,” Glessner said in a statement.