Having spent the past several months misleading and fearmongering about abortion pills, the Media Research Center started to fret that, as a right-wing court case aimed at outlawing the pills was to get a Supreme Court hearing, the other side of the story was going to be told. Jorge Bonilla 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.
Anti-abortion extremist Tierin-Rose 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.