The MRC's Abortion Pill Court Gambit

The Media Research Center cheered a Supreme Court case sleazed into existence with the goal of outlawing abortion pills -- while pretending the issue was only about "administrative law."

The Media Research Center, led by anti-abortion extremist Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, continued to rail against abortion pills since the last time we checked in last fall. Mandelburg spent an Oct. 23 post complaining that Colorado officials are following the science and banning use of a pill promoted by anti-abortion activists as reversing the effects of mifepristone:

The abortion scene in Colorado has been playing ping-pong on the issue of abortion drugs and abortion pill reversal. Its latest move puts the ball in the court of pro-lifers. 

Late Saturday evening, Judge Daniel Domencio blocked a state ban that prohibited pregnancy centers from administering abortion pill reversal drugs for mothers who start the process of an abortion but then change their mind, saying the ban violated the First Amendment religious and speech rights for the staff at the Bella Health pregnancy center. 

The Bella Health and Wellness center was founded by a Catholic mother and daughter duo. They’re both nurse practitioners and their center offers help to men, women and children and focuses on establishing life-affirming care. One of the things the clinic offers is progesterone, which is a naturally occurring hormone that is blocked when women take the first of two abortion drugs, mifepristone. Studies have shown that taking a progesterone drug, even after an abortion has started, can flood a woman’s body with enough of the hormone to kickstart her pregnancy and prohibit mifepristone from killing her child. 

Mandelburg censored the fact that no credible research shows that progesterone works in reversing mifepristone.

In a Dec. 14 post, Jorge Bonilla cheered then-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for refusing to directly answer a question about abortion pills in a TV interview:

GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy shut down CNN town hall host Abby Phillip’s framing on the question of the U.S. Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari regarding abortion drug Mifepristone. 

Watch as Ramaswamy moves Phillip’s question off of its abortion frame, and on to the issue of a runaway administrative state- as aired on CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall with Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday, December 13th, 2023[.] […]

Phillip tried to set the question up as a “restriction to access to abortion” question, and had Ramaswamy stayed on that frame, they would have remained there and gone into a discussion of when and under what conditions is it appropriate to grant access to the drug.

But Ramaswamy spots this and moves off abortion and into administrative law. Ramaswamy brought up West Virginia v. EPA, the runaway regulatory agencies, and it’s a miracle he didn’t bring up the current challenge to Chevron, which will be heard in this term.

Mandelburg spent a Jan. 5 post peddling an apparently unverified sob story about a woman who underwent a “chemical abortion” — the scary anti-abortion lingo for the abortion pill — and had complications afterward:

The sad part is, Planned Parenthood, and the left in general, rarely, if ever, talk about these sorts of stories. They paint the idea that the abortion pill is safe, harmless and a great option, when the reality is that they are far from safe whatsoever for the woman or her child.

[…]

Now, can I somehow go back and corroborate Desiree’s story? No. But Desiree isn’t the only one who’s shared about the heartbreaking reality of what a chemical abortion is and does. This information needs to be shared, not silenced by Planned Parenthood and the leftist regime.

Mandelburg won’t tell you that the abortion pill is safer than childbirth for women (though anti-abortion activists have a different, politically motivated spin).

Luis Cornelio spent a March 5 post complaining that right-wing scaremongering about abortion pills was called out — and hyping a right-wing court case seeking to ban the pills:

YouTube has been put on notice after placing labels on videos against abortion and downplaying the dangers of such medical procedures ahead of a Supreme Court case on abortion pills.

[…]

First reported by The Daily Signal, the letter came after YouTube targeted a video by legal advocacy group ADF. The pro-life legal advocacy group featured the harrowing story of Elizabeth Gillette—an activist and author who faced complications after undergoing a medical abortion without medical supervision.

“The pain was so severe and I was so scared and I was bleeding so heavily I thought I was going to die,” a visibly emotional Gillette said in the minute-long YouTube clip. “There’s nothing like completely abandoned in the greatest moment of need. I didn’t have a nurse, I didn’t have a doctor.”

In response to the video, YouTube placed a “context” banner under the video to define abortion. The context banner linked to the U.S. government National Library of Medicine website and peddled the demonstrably false claim: “The procedure is done by a licensed healthcare professional.”

YouTube’s claim is detached from reality as the Food Drug Administration notoriously relaxed in 2016 the decades-long requirement that medical professionals perform medical abortions. Under the new procedure, women may receive abortion pills via virtual appointments and even by mail.

This move ignited a legal battle that has made its way to the Supreme Court, with the justices scheduled to hear the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case on March 26. The 16 attorneys general suggested that YouTube’s false claim is at odds with the facts in the case.

Two days later, Mandelburg wailed that businesses are selling legal products:

On Friday, two of the nation’s largest pharmacy retailers announced they’d start selling abortion pills on their shelves. This decision comes just weeks before the Supreme Court is set to reach a verdict on a case insisting that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) distribution of mail order abortion pills is dangerous and reckless.

CVS and Walgreens “received certification from the FDA to dispense mifepristone to consumers,” Townhall reported. The same report indicated that mifepristone’s accessibility at CVS will begin in stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and that Walgreens will roll out the pill in select pharmacy locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois.

“We continually monitor and evaluate changes in state laws and will dispense mifepristone in any state where it is or becomes legally permissible to do so,” CVS Spokesperson Amy Thibault said according to The New York Times.

This is incredibly harmful and nerve wracking for women and babies. Putting a pill that, if successful, kills at least one person on a shelf in a pharmacy gives off the impression that doing so is not a big deal.

Mandelburg also hyped a claim that abortion pills are “four times more dangerous” than surgical abortions — but didn’t mention she wants to outlaw surgical abortions too.

Mandelburg pushed more anti-abortion propaganda in a March 20 post:

Abortion pills are probably the most dangerous way to kill your kid in the womb.

A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, an overtly pro-abort group, indicated that of all the abortions that took place in 2023, more than 60 percent of them were conducted through chemical abortions induced by the abortion pill. This study comes just before the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments surrounding mifepristone, one of the two pills involved in the abortion pill regimen. 

The uptick in abortions using pills rose after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022. With SCOTUS pushing decisions on abortion laws back to the states, many areas used the opportunity to broaden abortion access while others took the decision to push more pro-life laws and protect innocent life. 

“As abortion restrictions proliferate post-Dobbs, medication abortion may be the most viable option – or the only option – for some people, even if they would have preferred in-person procedural care,” Guttmacher principal research scientist Rachel Jones said. 

[…]

An important thing to note is that the abortion pill is not safe. The pills not only promote abortion as something that’s casual but they put women at extreme risk and, if successful, kill at least one human being. As a matter of fact, medication abortion has been reported to be “four times more dangerous” than surgical abortions and has reportedly increased abortion-related ER visits by 500 percent from 2002-2015.

She too hyped the upcoming court case: “Next Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear a case between the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, which will likely point out the FDA’s negligence in researching these pills and how dangerous they really are.” Written like a true propagandist.

Mad that full story was being told

As a right-wing court case aimed at outlawing the pills was to get a Supreme Court hearing, the MRC started to fret that the other side of the story was going to be told. Jorge Bonilla laughably insisted in a March 20 post that right-wing activists weren’t actually trying to ban the pills:

There will soon be another high-stakes Supreme Court hearing on abortion and the media have already chosen the narrative terrain on which they wish to engage the matter, framing the argument as over access to abortion pills.

[…]

Both reports framed the issue as one of access and convenience. But that’s not what is at issue before the Supreme Court. 

As Vivek Ramaswamy explained during his December town hall with CNN’s Abby Phillip, the Mifepristone hearing is about administrative law and a runaway bureaucracy that appears to have rushed to allow Mifepristone to be dispensed via mail. Watch as Ramaswama resists Phillip’s attempts at steering the debate away from administrative law and towards “ban” language[.]

Bonilla repeated this narrative again in a March 26 post:

As we mentioned previously, the media are desperately seeding narrative ahead of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on whether the FDA violated the law when it issued emergency approval for Mifepristone, framing the issue instead as a matter of “access”. But NBC has taken that advocacy one step further. 

Watch this segment from correspondent Dasha Burns’ latest dispatch, from what can charitably be called an abortion pill mill:

[…]

This is a follow-up to Burns’ previous item on Mifepristone, wherein she visited a Planned Parenthood in Miami and received several testimonials on the convenience of abortion pills. The whole play here is to build sympathy around the access argument.

But the hearing before the Court isn’t at all about access or the availability of abortion pills. Rather, it is about administrative law and a runaway federal bureaucracy. Credit to Burns for at least showcasing the perspective from a pro-life advocate who made this very point, which is something that usually doesn’t make it into the media’s advocacy for unrestricted abortion.

In fact, the lead plaintiff in the case, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, was created in late 2021 in Amarillo, Texas — home of far-right federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — specifically to advocate for an abortion pill ban with the help of a right-wing-friendly venue. Framing it as an issue of “administrative law” is a subterfuge, given that a ban is the ultimate goal.

Mandelburg kept up the subterfuge in a March 27 post on the Supreme Court hearing:

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Supporters of both sides gathered outside the Court in Washington D.C. to share their stance. Pro-aborts advocated for the abortion pill to remain on the market while pro-lifers insisted that the FDA was negligent in its research prior to approving the abortion pill and thus, that the pill should be removed from the market.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Erin Hawley argued before the court along with Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach who all insisted that the FDA’s “unlawful removal of critical safeguards for the use of chemical abortion drugs,” harms women and that the abortion pill regime is not safe. 

[…]

During their arguments, rallies were held outside the Supreme Court building. Representatives from Concerned Women for America, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, March for Life, Young Women for America, and various congresspeople held signs and insisted that the FDA needed to do its actual job and produce drugs that help, not harm people.

“I would love it if the other side would tell the truth. They are about big abortion. They are not about safety for women and it’s never been about safety for babies,” Concerned Women for America’s Penny Nance said in front of SCOTUS. 

Does Nance sound like someone who cares only about “administrative law”? Nope — she, like Mandelburg, is an abortion abolitionist, and she sees this dishonest case as working toward that goal. Mandelburg showed her extremism again with her attacks on anyone who dares to advocate a different view:

Pro-abortion rally-goers gathered as well. Their message was essentially: “we don’t care how harmful the abortion pill is, we still want it available at any point, for any person and regardless of any risks.”

One woman, a “rabbi,”  in an interview with USA Today, insisted that her “rights are under threat” as well as her “ability to live safely and healthily.” Again, nothing about the abortion pill is safe. If successful, it kills at least one human being and puts a woman’s life in significant risk. 

The same video showed individuals holding sings that read “The Bible can be your guide but not my shackle,” “reproductive freedom for all,” “Abortion on our own terms,” and then of course a line of old ladies, who likely won’t have any use for the abortion pill, held letters in a line that spelt out “PRO ROE.”

The pro-aborts really do come up with a bunch of nonsense when they think that their opportunity to kill babies may be at stake.

While waiting for that decision to come down, the MRC defended a side issue in Louisiana declaring abortion pills controlled substances. Sarah Butler complained that the Louisiana law was criticized in a May 22 post:

On the Wednesday edition of Today, NBC Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson mourned Louisiana’s decision to pass a bill that will reclassify two drugs commonly used in abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled and dangerous substances.

Co-host Craig Melvin introduced Jackson by reporting, “In a first of its kind move, lawmakers in Louisiana have now passed a bill to reclassify two commonly used drugs in abortions as ‘controlled dangerous substances.’”

[…]

Jackson did manage to interview the bill’s primary sponsor, State Sen. Thomas Pressly, where she recalled “his sister was given an abortion drug while pregnant without her consent.”

However, Jackson left out the details. Catherine Herring, was six to eight weeks pregnant with her daughter when she began to suspect that her husband, Mason, was spiking her water with abortion pills. In Louisiana, mifepristone and misoprostol can be easily obtained through the mail or picked up out of state. Herring installed cameras in her home which revealed that she was taking abortion pills against her consent. In February of this year, Mason Herring pleaded guilty to injuring a child and the assault of a pregnant woman. He was sentenced to six months in jail.

Butler didn’t mention that abortion pills were already effectively illegal in Louisiana since nearly all abortions have been outlawed, so all the law does is make the pills harder to get for those taking them for non-abortion purposes such as treating a uterine hemorrhage or a miscarriage.

SCOTUS failure

The Supreme Court unanimously shot the case down, and Mandelburg pouted about it in a June 13 post, making sure to fearmonger about the pill in her headline by calling it “Dangerous & Deadly”:

In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the chemical abortion drug. In 2022, a group of concerned healthcare professionals sued the FDA for its negligence in establishing safeguards prior to its approval of the drug. On Thursday, however, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the suit. The FDA will continue its approval of the dangerous abortion drug, and women and babies will remain in harm’s way.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys represented the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, three other medical associations and individual doctors in a lawsuit against the FDA after insisting that the FDA is endangering women and girls. The doctors cited side effects of the drug including; ectopic pregnancies, severe bleeding, and life-threatening infections and noted. They also cited concerns over the fact that the FDA does not require these dangerous drugs to be taken at a doctors office. Women can take them alone at home or in their dorm room. Thirdly, the doctors noted that physicians should be required to report all serious complications from these drugs. As it stands now, they do not have to.

A few months later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the FDA did in fact act unlawfully with its removal of the necessary and important safety standards, and the case got moved up to the Supreme Court for review. This step was promising and the pro-life movement seemed hopeful on March 26, when oral arguments were held.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that they would not reinstate any of the safeguards for the abortion pill. Due to this, the abortion pill will remain widely acceptable and will continue putting innocent babies and women at risk. 

In response to the decision, pro-life individuals and groups were heartbroken and terrified for women and babies.

Mandelburg wasn’t going to mention the fundamental gaming-the-system dishonesty at the heart of the case, in which the lead plaintiff was created in the district of of a far-right federal judge specifically to advocate for an abortion pill ban with the help of a friendly venue. Instead, she quoted only fellow anti-abortion activists similarly lamenting the ruling, then concluded by whining: “What this shows is that even though SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade back in 2022, the fight for life and safety for women and girls is far from over.”

Another post the same day by Butler complained that the co-hosts of “The View” still don’t trust the Supreme Court despite this ruling:

On Thursday, ABC’s The View’s Joy Behar responded to the recent Supreme Court decision to not restrict access to the abortion drug Mifepristone by attacking the institution itself, proclaiming: “I don’t trust it. But I don’t trust them!”

Surprisingly, co-host Sunny Hostin initiated the segment as she expressed that the Supreme Court’s decision “does restore a little bit of my faith in the court.” Her support for this was the fact that not everyone can “bring a case in front of the Supreme Court.” Hostin alluded to Justice Clarence Thomas opinion on the decision and concluded that this was “black-letter law and they stuck to it.”

Co-host Ana Navarro did not hesitate as she exclaimed, “Well I just have to wonder what flag Mrs. Alito is going to fly today.” The audience cheered and laughed like usual.

Later in the segment, Joy Behar noted that you can get this medication in the mail “just like women have been doing.” But she made it evident that even though decision was 9-0 in her favor, she did not approve of the Supreme Court’s decision as she interrupted Hostin and declared: “I don’t trust it. But I don’t trust them – if Donald Trump gets in, don’t trust this.”

Michael Wnek groused in a June 26 post that MSNBC host Joy Reid “pushed the tired narrative of the Supreme Court’s partisan bias, pathetically expressing displeasure in the unanimous Mifepristone case decision, a clear win for the pro-abortion movement. Instead, the miserable pair insisted that the justices were politically motivated in light of the upcoming election.”

In a June 27 post, Mary Clare Waldron complained that CNN’s Jim Acosta cut the microphone of anti-abortion activist Kristan Hawkins after she repeatedly lied that the abortion pill is unsafe: “Hawkins was speaking about an earlier SCOTUS case, FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, one which the left claimed as another victory. It was this criticism that prompted Acosta to literally silence this opposing opinion as Hawkins had her mic cut as Acosta ended the segment.”