The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee debated whether women are coerced into medicated abortions in a Wednesday hearing about the safety of mifepristone and misoprostol.
The hearing was meant to focus on the safety review from the Food and Drug Administration about the safety of the two abortion pills.
Liz Murrill, Louisiana attorney general, told senators about her attempted prosecution of a New York doctor who prescribed abortion pills to a pregnant Louisiana 16-year-old after the girl's mother "coerced" her to get an abortion.
The girl was 20 weeks pregnant when her mother persuaded her to get an abortion, Murrill said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul refused to extradite the doctor, Murrill said.
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, said his mother was pressured by his father to have an abortion, which she refused.
"Think about the world we live in today with drugs like mifepristone and wonder if it existed then, would the outcome for [him] have been different," Husted said.
"I would like to think that my birth mother would have still chosen to have an adoption, but I've seen some of the horrors of men who are trying to use the drug to end pregnancies against the will of the woman that they give the drug to," he added.
Democrats at the hearing said restricting mifepristone would not stop coerced abortions.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said while he believed coerced abortions should be prosecuted, restricting access to mifepristone by requiring in-person screenings would place burdens on women who voluntarily choose to terminate a pregnancy.
"It seems to me that, like, the opposite of coercion is choice," Kaine said. "If we're against coercion, why would [we] be anti-choice?"
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said that women have faced violence tied to pregnancy for thousands of years, and it has nothing to do with abortion pills.
"The murder rate, the assault rate on pregnant women by their partners to end a pregnancy has been a long-standing part of human history, so to blame it on mifepristone misses the point," Hassan said.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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