North Dakota Medicated-Abortion Hearing On Hold Until 2012

The North Dakota hearing regarding outlawing abortion-inducing drugs to provide medicated abortions in the state has been once more put on hold, this time with a judge saying it will not be heard until next year.

Although the state is claiming the restriction is simply a common sense way to ensure that all drugs are used according to FDA regulations, which would require them only being taken in the presence of a doctor, reproductive health activists counter that the true goal is to make abortions more expensive, and thus harder to get.

Tammi Kromenaker – Red River Women’s Clinic: “It would triple the price, it would require women to return to the clinic for a second visit to take medications and we believe that women are perfectly capable of taking medications in their own homes.”

If they want “all” medications to be taken according to instructions, then why not require a doctor’s presence before ingesting antibiotics? Or painkillers or viagra, both of which have a liklihood of being abused? Why only abortion drugs, if it has nothing to do with making abortion harder to obtain and more expensive?