Tell Us How You REALLY Feel...

by Julia Kaye, Health Policy Associate
National Women’s Law Center

On Tuesday, the Missouri Senate accidentally deemed the substance used in medical abortions, mifepristone (aka RU-486), a “restricted” substance on par with heroin. The legislation, which requires pharmacies to keep an electronic log of their sales of controlled substances and certain over-the-counter medications (including cold medicine), also contained a House provision that included mifepristone in the “restricted” category, along with heroin and marijuana. Thirty minutes after the legislation passed, its sponsor, anti-choice Sen. Norma Champion (R-Springfield), noticed the ain’t-that-ironic clerical error and drew the other legislators’ attention to it.  Whoops! They rescinded the first vote, removed the provision and approved it again. Sen. Champion stated that she did not want senators who support abortion rights "to think [she] was trying to sneak something in" the measure—"It simply was an error."

Inspired by Passover a few weeks ago, I’d like to ask four questions of the good folks of Missouri:

1. Why exactly did the original House bill include the perfectly legal mifepristone, deemed safe and effective by the FDA, on a list of restricted substances that includes heroin?
2. Why wasn’t this caught earlier?  Shouldn’t somebody have found this before the legislation was passed?
3. What irresponsible editor on staff at the Springfield News-Leader, which covered this little legislative slip-up, approved a story that uses the phrases “morning-after pill,” RU-486, mifepristone and emergency contraception synonymously throughout!?  For example:
   
   Pro-abortion-rights Missouri Senators were briefly on the record Tuesday as supporting a bill with language that labeled the so-called "morning after" abortion pill a controlled substance.  The bill, designed to track the sale of controlled substances and cold medicines, would have labeled the controversial RU-486 abortion pill a controlled substance.
   
   Obviously, the journalist did not know that EC is a contraceptive that prevents unintended pregnancy (and cannot in any way harm an established pregnancy), while RU-486 is a doctor-controlled abortion pill. But come on – you’re a journalist!  Do your homework!
4. If the Missouri people would like their legislators to make amends, I suggest they ask them to talk to their colleagues over at the Missouri House of Representatives about provisions that casually designate the substance used in medical abortions as “restricted.” And while they’re chatting, the Senate might also want to inform House members that if they really want to protect a woman’s right to make decisions about her reproductive health free of coercion, then a woman who has made the decision to terminate her pregnancy shouldn’t be forced to look at a brochure or video that provides “color photographs or images of the developing [fetus] at two-week gestational increments from conception to full term” and asked if she wants to give the fetus anesthesia. 

(OK, this last one’s not really a question, what can I say).