They just don’t care how many people suffer and die
This is just one of the many consequences of the right’s great anti-abortion victory that are happening all over the country. There is no evidence that they care:
Six days after the Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion, lupus patient Becky Schwarzgot an unexpected message from her rheumatologist.
“This is a notice to let you know that we are pausing all prescriptions and subsequent refills of methotrexate,” the message read. “This decision has been made in response to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.”
Schwarz was stunned. Methotrexate is a cheap, common drug prescribed to millions of Americans. Like her, many have rheumatic illnesses. Others take it to treat inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis or cancer.
Yet few are aware that it is used off-label to end ectopic pregnancies, or that it could be restricted by doctors or pharmacists even in states like Virginia that do not ban abortion.
The reasons are numerous, and muddy.
In Texas, dispensing methotrexate to someone who uses it to induce a miscarriage after 49 days of gestation is a felony; that makes pharmacists hesitant to fill such prescriptions for almost anyone with a uterus. A new total ban on abortion in Tennessee will effectively criminalize any medication that could disrupt pregnancy past the point of fertilization, with strict exceptions for a patient who will otherwise die. And in Virginia, confusion over rules about who is permitted to prescribe drugs “qualified as abortifacients” may be blocking access to the medication.
“That’s what was shocking to me,” said Schwarz, a 27-year-old who lives in Tysons Corner, Va. “In a state where I thought I was relatively protected regardless of what the Supreme Court decided, I found out I wasn’t.”
Methotrexate was originally developed as a chemotherapy agent more than 60 years ago. But in low doses, it has proved to be one of the safest, least expensive and most effective treatments for roughly a dozen autoimmune conditions, from juvenile idiopathic arthritis to Crohn’s disease.
“It’s one of the most common medications that I prescribe,” saidDr. Grant Schulert, a pediatric rheumatology specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “It’s really a mainstay of our practice.”
Indeed, methotrexate was first approved to treat rheumatic illnesses in 1959, before Schulert was born and almost 15 years before Roe vs. Wade was decided.
There is no way they can mitigate this sensibly. What is likely to happen is that there will have to be some mechanism to track women’s fertility to ensure that they are not using this life-saving drug “improperly.” Perhaps doctors will have to sign off with proof that their patients aren’t pregnant before prescribing it. And in some states I have no doubt they’ll just say, “tough luck, we’re saving babies here.”