The anti-choice end game now is clear

When the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wadedecision less than a year ago, Republicans were quick to assert that the decision did not outlaw abortion but merely returned the issue to the states — and that those wishing to keep the procedure legal would be free to do so.

They denied contemplating a national ban — and dismissed predictions to the contrary as Democratic propaganda.  

It was all a lie.

For anti-abortion extremists, reversing Roe was just the beginning.

Their end game was revealed April 7, when a federal judge in Amarillo overturned the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of a pill known as mifepristone which, along with a companion drug prescribed in tandem, now accounts for more than half of all U.S. abortions.

If the ruling stands, no woman anywhere in America will have access to the abortion pill.

Never mind that the judge has no medical or scientific training, or that no court ever has ordered a drug outlawed over the FDA’s opposition.

Never mind recent polls that say more than 70% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances.

And never mind that since Roe was overturned, the pro-choice position has won every place it has been on the ballot, including in bright red states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Montana. 

To justify his ruling, Judge Matthew Kacsmarcyk found that the pill’s FDA approval was rushed, that its usage is unsafe and that a ban will ensure “women and girls are protected from unnecessary harm.”

To call these findings preposterous vastly understates their absurdity.

The FDA took 54 months before approving mifepristone in 2000.  For other drugs green-lit by the agency that year, the average length of the approval process was 15.6 months.

In the two decades since, mifepristone has been used by millions of women, been approved in more than 80 countries, is listed by the World Health Organization as an “essential medicine” and its efficacy has been extensively studied.

No drug is 100% safe.

But Mifepristone comes close, with a fatality rate of 0.0005%.

That not only makes it safer than Tylenol, but four times safer than penicillin, 10 times safer than Viagra, and 14 times safer than childbirth.

If “safety” is Kacsmaryck’s concern, will he be coming after penicillin next?

You can bet he won’t try to outlaw Viagra; even Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would put the brakes on that one.

So let’s cut the crap.  Opposition to mifepristone isn’t about safety.

It’s about ending a woman’s right to choose.

It was hardly an accident that the organization bringing the case — the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which has a Tennessee mailing address — chose to incorporate in Amarillo just two months after the Supreme Court struck down Roe.

Because Amarillo only has one federal judge, the Alliance knew filing there would guarantee its case would be heard by Kacsmaryck, a Trump-appointed, right-wing zealot who opposes same sex marriage and LGBTQ rights, has criticized Roein writing and, I’m embarrassed to say, graduated from my own alma mater, the hyper-conservative Abilene Christian University.

Forum shopping obviously paid off for the extremists.

But for the rest of us who believe that decisions on when to begin a family or whether to terminate a pregnancy should be made by women and actual medical professionals, not politicians masquerading as doctors and judges practicing medicine without a license, Kacsmaryck’s ideologically-driven ruling is a frontal assault on one of our most basic personal freedoms.

To which I believe the only effective response is a four-letter word: VOTE.

Just three days before the Amarillo ruling, a pro-choice candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court won a landslide election, primarily on the issue of choice.

We must now replicate that result in upcoming elections everywhere, in blue states and in red states from sea to shining sea.

Because if there is one thing I’ve learned after 40 years in politics, it’s that nothing concentrates a politician’s mind like being thrown out of office. 

And the surest way to lose our freedoms and our democracy is failing to stand up for them at the ballot box.

Dale Butland was press secretary and Ohio chief of staff to the late U.S. Sen. John Glenn. He is a 1970 graduate of Abilene Christian University.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: The anti-choice end game now is clear