Pro-abortion Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who has said her first abortion following rape was “the beginning of … the darkest period of my life,” and that her second abortion was forced, claimed Monday that banning the abortion pill was the equivalent of banning Tylenol.
During a House Oversight Committee discussion on “Medication Abortion Access and Republican Efforts to Ban Abortion Nationwide,” Bush said, “Banning medication abortion would be like placing a ban on Tylenol [or] a ban on antibiotics. There is no scientific, no valid medical reason to do so. It is only political propaganda.” She repeatedly said the abortion pill is “safe and effective.”
She also claimed, “Medication abortion is a lifeline. A lifeline for the person working multiple jobs that cannot afford to take a day off work because wages are too low or they don’t have paid sick leave, a lifeline for the mom of two who cannot afford childcare or cannot find affordable childcare.”
Rep. Cori Bush says restricting access to abortion pills is equivalent to “placing a ban on Tylenol.”
Last I checked Tylenol didn’t kill babies, but ok…pic.twitter.com/OAR954RtgJ
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 18, 2023
Tylenol, however, doesn’t kill babies. That’s what Bush means when she says the abortion pill is “effective” — because abortion is only “effective” when it results in a dead baby.
Aside from this glaringly obvious difference between Tylenol and mifepristone (the first of the two drugs in the abortion pill regimen), there’s also the studies that have shown that six percent of women who took the abortion pill suffered a complication severe enough to send them to the emergency room or urgent care.
As for Tylenol, the percentage of people who require a hospital visit after taking it is considerably lower. As Live Action staff writer and researcher Bettina di Fiore reported, “[A] 2016 study sought to analyze trends in acetaminophen-related adverse events, and tracked the rate of annual ER visits relative to annual sales of the drug. It found that, for the year 2012 (the most recent year covered by the study), there were 282.1 acetaminophen-related ER visits for every 1 (one) million units sold. Assuming typical dosage to be equivalent to two tablets, this means that .056% of doses sold resulted in a hospital visit (282.1/500,000 = .00056).”
Mifepristone’s rate of sending patients to the ER and urgent care is 107 times greater than the rate for acetaminophen/Tylenol.
Furthermore, wrote di Fiore, “A recent study found that 40% of women taking the abortion pill experienced “severe pain” – pain they experienced as a direct consequence of taking the drug, which they would not have experienced otherwise. The abortion pill causes pain; Tylenol treats it.”
Likewise, antibiotics save lives. Induced abortion, however, directly and intentionally kills a human being.
In addition, in singling out disadvantaged women, Bush is essentially targeting impoverished women and their children for abortion. Being low-income doesn’t mean women should be expected to kill their children in order to maybe save themselves. But Bush makes abortion appear to be the only choice — the best choice — for low-income women.
Abortion isn’t a “lifeline” for anyone. Abortion is quite literally the act of killing a human being in utero. If killing one’s own born children shouldn’t be considered a “lifeline” for parents, neither should killing them before birth. A true lifeline would include support, access to resources, and education for young women that teaches them to value themselves and their bodies and wait until the commitment of marriage to have sex.
While such an idea may seem old-fashioned to many, the truth is that women in the U.S. are 35% more likely than men to be poor. Single mothers face the highest risk of living in poverty; 30.6% of households headed by single mothers live in poverty compared to less than 15% of households headed by a man and about five percent of households headed by a married couple. It’s a trend called “the feminization of poverty.” In other words, marriage appears to be a significant factor in helping people not to live in poverty.
Perhaps, however, “old-fashioned” is preferable to today’s idea that pregnancy is somehow solely a woman’s responsibility. Men are no longer expected to fully commit to the women they get pregnant — and if the woman refuses the abortion abortion he offers her, she is likely to find herself a single mother.
Even if she has the abortion, the rate of divorce or breakup after an abortion increases by as much as 75%, according to the deVeber Institute. This would leave them, and any born children they have, at risk of the poverty that coinicides with single motherhood.
