Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we ask you to sign a petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging that they protect our access to all reproductive health care. This petition is in alignment with our position as a pro-choice church since 1989*.
[*1989 Pro-Choice Position Statement here]
On September 1, 2020, Senator Ted Cruz and 19 of his Senate colleagues sent a letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn urging the agency to ban the abortion pill, Mifeprex, in the United States. In defense of the letter, Cruz claimed that “pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness” and the [abortion pill does not “cure or prevent disease.” In the letter itself, Cruz called Mifeprex “highly dangerous” and “deadly.”
On the contrary, decades of research shows that medication abortion is safe. Reproductive and public health expert Dr. Beverly Winikoff told USA TODAY in response to Cruz’s remark. “No, it’s not an illness, but it is life-threatening. The odds of dying in pregnancy are higher than dying from this drug. So in fact, if you wanted to make a risk calculation, it’s actually safer to have a medical abortion, than it is to have a full-term pregnancy. We have data on that.”
Cruz’s attempt to remove Mifeprex from the U.S. market isn’t based in legitimate science or a desire to keep pregnant people safe—it’s just the same anti-abortion rhetoric he’s peddled for years. The facts are that the United States’ maternal mortality rate is abysmal, particularly for Black women—and Texas, Cruz’s own state, has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.
The senators’ claims in their letter to the FDA are even more egregious given that we’re in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the virus continues to spread, pregnancy is becoming even more dangerous. Further, trying to ban the abortion pill in the middle of an unprecedented national health crisis is just plain cruel. People need increased access to health care right now—like being able to receive Mifeprex by mail—not an additional onslaught of abortion restrictions.
It’s downright despicable that instead of focusing on passing a real pandemic relief package or finding solutions to pregnancy and childbirth risks in the states they represent, anti-abortion senators are instead trying to ban a critical form of medical care. They should be ashamed.
We must demand full protection for reproductive medical care!
