US conservatives vow harsh restrictions to curtail abortion pills
Al JazeeraThe US Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that enshrined the legal right to abortion in the United States in federal law, reversing nearly 50 years of precedent and inflaming a sharp ideological divide. With Roe struck down, anti-abortion rights groups are facing a “completely different landscape” that will give states the ability to “revisit” policies that were not previously possible, Laura Echevarria, a spokesperson for the anti-abortion rights group National Right to Life Committee, told Al Jazeera. The NRLC model law says that meaningful enforcement of abortion bans will require a “much more robust enforcement regime” to counter factors like abortion pills and blue states likely to take steps to protect providers, a coalition of actors the group calls the “illegal abortion industry”. Hey Jane, a telehealth abortion provider, told Al Jazeera in a statement that, “Abortion care via mail is now likely to be the most viable form of access for most of the country.” Other providers that are based outside the US, such as the group Aid Access, could also pose a challenge to conservatives seeking to penalise providers: it is difficult to see what path is available for cracking down on such groups, which have experience sending the pills to countries where abortion has been illegal for years. But stopping abortion pills from arriving through the mail could require more invasive steps than anti-abortion rights groups have previously been willing to promote.