Georgia Senate committee backs ban on abortion pills by mail

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Containers of the medication used to end an early pregnancy sit on a table inside a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Oct. 29, 2021, in Fairview Heights, Ill.

Credit: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

A Senate panel backed legislation that bans access to abortion pills by mail without first having an in-person visit with a doctor.

Another piece of the legislation also completely prohibits state facilities and schools from providing abortion-inducing drugs on their campuses — a provision that would primarily impact Georgia colleges.

The bill, SB 456, targets a federal decision from the Biden administration that allows patients to be prescribed and sent medication that induces abortion without visiting a doctor in person. 

Patients are able to access pills through telemedicine, after the reliance on virtual medical visits grew exponentially during the pandemic. 

After an hourlong meeting with limited testimony, the Senate Health and Human Services committee passed the bill 7 to 5, along party lines.

Proponents of the measure — mainly conservative lobbyist groups — praised lawmakers for taking steps to protect women from potential adverse side effects of abortion pills.

But critics argued that abortion pills are widely regarded as safe and the legislation further limits women’s access to receive medical abortions if they choose to do so. 

Abortion rights advocates pointed to previous laws passed by the Georgia General Assembly that severely restrict abortion access, including the 2019 “fetal heartbeat bill,” which bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks of the pregnancy.

Allison Coffman, director of Amplify Georgia, a coalition of abortion rights groups, said the bill follows a pattern by state lawmakers to continue to crack down on access to abortion services.

“This has been happening since 2005, with over 13 medically necessary abortion restrictions,” she said. “SB 456 is just another bill following the same pattern.  [It] has really nothing to do with health and safety and everything to do with restricting access to care.”

Backers of the bill argued that in-person visits set a higher standard of safety that virtual visits don’t meet. But practicing physicians testified to the committee that isn’t the case — and requiring patients to schedule an in-person appointment is burdensome.

“Legislative and solution intrusion into patient physician relationships is bad medicine,” said Dr. Melissa Kottke, an Atlanta obstetrician. "It's bad for physicians and it's bad for patients."

“In-person dispensing is unnecessary," she added. "Mail order delivery does not equate to lack of supervision and lack of medical care."

Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Stone Mountain Democrat, posed a question to her Republican colleagues: What gives legislators the authority to supercede doctors who say abortion pills are widely safe to use?

Sen. Bruce Thompson (R-White) said that Georgia legislators were only counteracting a decision by the federal government to expand access during the pandemic and that it is now time to reestablish standards for dispensing of abortion-inducing drugs.

“We all the time as legislators take up different issues that maybe we're not experts in,” he said.

Thompson, like other members of the General Assembly, has launched a bid for higher office, which he previously denied as motivation behind the conservative measure.

Staci Fox, director of Planned Parenthood Southeast, is skeptical.

“This bill is nothing but a performative bill in the middle of an election year,” she said during the hearing. “Abortion has already been decided by the state, so there is no reason for it to be wasting tax dollars and [taxpayers’] time on debating a bill like this.”