Michigan’s outgoing Republican Governor Rick Snyder recently vetoed a bill that would have made telemed abortions illegal in the state. In his last day acting on bills, the governor dealt a blow to the state’s pro-lifers by vetoing SB 1198, legislation that would have permanently banned Michigan physicians from using telemedicine to prescribe the abortion pill.
SB 1198 sought to extend a telemed abortion ban that initially passed in 2012, requiring physicians to conduct an in-person examination before prescribing the abortion pill. With majority support, Republican legislators hoped to make the ban permanent law. Snyder’s veto marks a flip-flop from his support of the initial bill in 2012.
Also known as a webcam abortion, a telemed abortion allows a doctor to prescribe the abortion pill through a webcam interaction without ever meeting the patient face to face. While Snyder vetoed the bill with the claim that patients in rural areas need access to “safe and proper medical care,” experience has shown that the abortion pill is far from “safe” care. The pill has been responsible for at least 22 deaths since it was approved in 2000, with countless other women suffering serious complications, including nearly 600 women who experienced so much blood loss that they needed a transfusion. Many women are continuing to speak out about their frightening experiences with the abortion pill. Despite these alarming statistics and stories, the abortion lobby touts the pill as safe enough to take without in-person interaction with a physician, and is beginning to push for wholly self-administered medication abortions.
READ: The abortion industry is now pushing dangerous home abortions
Right to Life of Michigan added a statement to its website, emphasizing the danger of eliminating in-person physician visits: “The abortionist never once examines the patient. This makes it cheaper for Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities to give out the abortion pill without having a doctor on staff, and more dangerous for the woman because of an even starker lack of necessary follow-up care.”
The organization added in another statement,” Telemedicine may be fine when you have to call up your busy family practice doctor you’ve seen for years for a fever or skin condition, but abortion should be treated more seriously than that. Planned Parenthood ran a profit of nearly $100 million dollars according to their latest annual report, but their idea of increasing access to ‘healthcare’ for women is cutting corners and making an even bigger mockery of the doctor-patient relationship for abortion procedures.”
Snyder’s veto marks a disappointing end to his eight years in office. While the governor told voters he was pro-life, his two terms were filled with RTL Michigan says are “vetoes and betrayals.” He is replaced by pro-abortion Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.
