Issues

Amid COVID-19 abortion concerns, Congress sends letters to Trump admin urging pro-life protections

Congress, Planned Parenthood

In the wake of the abortion industry’s continued exploitation of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, pro-life Senators and Representatives in Congress have responded by sending letters encouraging the Trump Administration to keep critical pro-life protections in place. 

Despite the more than 600,000 reported coronavirus cases in the U.S. (including at least 30,000 deaths), and in defiance of many states’ stay-at-home orders for all non-essential businesses, abortion businesses throughout the nation remain open, using up valuable personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to combat the pandemic, harming women, and killing preborn human beings.

Additionally, the abortion lobby is putting pressure on the Trump administration, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to lift critical federal safety protections on chemical abortion and to reinstate the federal funding of research using the body parts of aborted children. The two letters in response to these unfounded and unsafe asks reiterate the importance of putting vulnerable Americans above abortion special interest. 

READ: Abortion pill dangers are unknown because half of U.S. states don’t report complications

Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) and Representative Bob Latta (R-OH) led a bicameral letter to Steve Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The letter garnered the support of 38 Senators and 121 Representatives and encouraged the FDA to ensure that its abortion pill safety requirements — known as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) — remain in place during the pandemic. The lawmakers note in the letter:

As you may know, the New York Times editorial board and others have called for making medication abortion more widely accessible with far less oversight – via an overturning of the REMS and an expansion of the stage of pregnancy at which Mifeprex may be prescribed.  These demands are both reckless and dangerous. The FDA should stand confidently for the protection of women.

The letter also emphasizes that lifting safety requirements — which are meant to ensure women are as safe as possible while taking the abortion pill regimen — would cause more harm during the pandemic, not less. The letter reads, “While hospitals are being pushed to their limits because of the growing number of people severely ill as a result of COVID-19, we should minimize, not increase, unrelated pressures on our health care providers.” These concerns are not unfounded, as at least 24 women have died from chemical abortions since the FDA approved the drug in 2000, and thousands more have suffered serious complications.

The second letter was led by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and was sent to President Trump with over 130 Members’ signatures. This letter refutes the false claim that federal funding of research using aborted baby body parts is needed to treat and save lives during COVID-19. The letter urges the Trump administration to direct funds toward “ethical, successful alternatives” to combat the pandemic. Some in favor of research using the bodies of aborted children have also issued a letter to the Trump administration, urging a lifting of the ban.

Both pro-life letters emphasize the importance of saving and protecting lives, not taking them, during this national pandemic and beyond. 

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