A district court judge in Montana has struck down two 2023 laws and a Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) rule that restricted abortion in the state.
Among the laws overturned by Judge Mike Menahan include:
- HB 544, which states that only physicians can commit abortions. That law also required “pre authorization” paperwork before a woman could receive an abortion.
- HB 862, which prohibited Medicaid-funded abortions unless the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or the mother was “in danger of death.”
- A DPHHS rule requiring that a pregnant woman receive pre-authorization approval, including an in-person examination prior to receiving an abortion. This rule, which holds the same weight in the state as a law, restricted a woman from receiving the abortion pill via telehealth appointment or through the mail.
“The undisputed facts likewise establish that the prior authorization requirements in the rule and HB 544 do not address a medically acknowledged, bona fide health risk. The unrequited testimony establishes that the requirements would require patients to make an extra in-person visit to a healthcare provider for a physical examination,” Menahan wrote in his opinion. “The physical examination would result in delays that harm patient health; and would in practice ban direct-to-patient medication abortions which have been done safely via telehealth for years without the need for any in-person visit.”
Despite the judge’s statements, an in-person, physical examination prior to a chemical abortion was the standard of care for 16 years, until 2016, when the Obama administration removed “the requirements that women or teen girls take the first drug in front of a clinician, in-person at the location of a certified prescriber and that the manufacturer report the drug’s non-fatal adverse events (complications). The drug’s allowed use was also extended for use on preborn children up to 10 weeks (70 days) of pregnancy,” as Live Action News previously reported.
In other words, for nine years, there has been neither an in-person requirement to obtain the abortion pill, nor the reporting of non-fatal (yet potentially extremely serious) adverse events resulting from the pill regimen to the manufacturer; as some have pointed out, removing safeguards and then removing the requirement to report related injuries is highly questionable.
Prior to 2016, an in-person visit was considered necessary to determine the preborn child’s gestational age, as well as to rule out an ectopic pregnancy or any other risk factors. An undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy could be fatal for the mother, and a failure to accurately assess gestational age could result in a higher chance of a failed or incomplete abortion (a potential infection risk), and more.
Menahan further noted that Medicaid cannot preclude a person from accessing the “healthcare” of abortion.
“However, the relevant inquiry is not whether the right of privacy requires the State to fund abortions, but whether, having elected to participate in a medical assistance program, the State may selectively exclude from such benefits otherwise eligible persons solely because they make constitutionally protected healthcare decisions with which the State disagrees,” he wrote.
Live Action News has repeatedly demonstrated that abortion is not health care. The aim of healthcare is to heal, while induced abortion intentionally and directly ends a life.
The state’s Republican lawmakers may choose to appeal the ruling.
