Misoprostol, a drug used in combination with mifepristone to induce an abortion, is not mentioned in the current draft of the bill.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Its sponsor, state Sen. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, told the Senate Health Committee in November that the disclaimer would provide “a framework for health care providers to educate a woman on the risks associated with a chemical abortion and makes her aware of her and her family’s rights to sue if the pill results in complications, injuries, a failed abortion, or her death.”
Katie DeLand, policy director for Ohio Right to Life, told the committee Wednesday that it’s “long past time to put meaningful safeguards in place for women considering a chemical abortion.”
“Regardless of one’s views on abortion, this is a principle we should all truly be able to agree on: Women deserve full transparency about medical risks, particularly when those risks can be severe, permanent, or life-threatening,” DeLand said.
Democrats, meanwhile, called into question why the bill singles out mifepristone as so medically risky that the state should treat it differently from all other prescribed drugs.
“The medication has been around for decades. Millions of doses have been administered, it’s been approved by the FDA, multiple studies have shown it to be incredibly safe. So, this statement, at minimum, is misleading; it’s designed to make people afraid that it isn’t safe,” said Sen. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, a central Ohio doctor who sits on the Senate Health Committee, in an interview with this news outlet.
Liston, D-Dublin, added that there are no other drugs doctors have to explicitly tell their patients they can sue over, despite there being “dozens of medications that have really high risk.” She argued S.B. 309 implies that patients looking for a drug-induced abortion should be ready to sue their doctor for malpractice.
Koehler told this outlet that the statistics behind mifepristone, and recent changes that have made it easier to acquire the drug, still present clear dangers that women ought to be explicitly warned about.
“We’re looking to make sure that women know that when they get this in the mail or get it from a doctor, that somebody has informed her that this is not like taking a Tylenol pill,” Koehler said.
There are also questions of S.B. 309’s ability, if passed, to survive a judicial review. After a 2023 vote, the Ohio Constitution bars the state from enacting any policy that might “directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against” a person’s right to exercise their own reproductive health care decisions.
Abortion Forward Deputy Director Jaime Miracle raised the point in a statement to this outlet: “The anti-abortion politicians in the Ohio Statehouse refuse to listen to Ohioans who said loud and clear that they are sick and tired of the government controlling their reproductive health care decisions.”
Koehler told this outlet that, though there might be complaints from abortion rights advocates, he believes the bill falls firmly in the legislature’s realm of authority.
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.
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