Promoting Abortion for All the Wrong Reasons

As legislators in Maryland consider a new law to expand abortion privilege. Project 21 member Patrina Mosley says “women deserve better.”

In testimony given at the state capitol in Annapolis on February 28, Patrina implored lawmakers to not spend millions in public funds “to lower the standards of care for women.”

During a hearing about the “Abortion Care Access Act” (HB 937), Patrina explained:

This bill wants to use 3.5 million of taxpayer dollars to enshrine abortion within the Maryland Department of Health, and at the same time lower the health standard of who can perform abortions from a licensed physician down to a “qualifying provider” – meaning anybody in the room.

The changes to existing state rules regarding abortion, Patrina said, would effectively allow abortions to be “self-managed.” She explained that this loosening of standards is a response to a “significant shortage” of “real physicians” who want to perform abortions. The bill would allow more widespread use of “chemical pills” to induce abortions. She told lawmakers this would increase risk:

Emergency room visits following the ingestion of the abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol have skyrocketed over 500 percent between 2002 and 2015.

Patrina suggested these risks would become even greater by allowing the life-ending procedure to be administered without proper medical oversight.

This bill, and others similar to it, are being pushed in state legislatures in reaction to an expected decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson returning the abortion issue to the states. Patrina called this action by lawmakers an unjustified rush:

Instead of trying to get ahead of a life-affirming decision in Dobbs, and enshrining a way to litigate any pro-life protections, how about you begin making plans to greater support motherhood and family building. This is women truly having it all.

Asserting that abortion bills “always find a way to lower care,” Patrina described a more sinister possible as to why some may want to promote abortion in this way:

Abortion is believed to be a quick fix for the state and white supremacists to deal with minorities, the disabled and the poor by dog-whistling that any type of pro-life protections would tremendously hurt “people of color and low-income.” But the evidence shows that, if you want to put less pressure on your social services, stop abortions.

To read all of Patrina’s testimony, click here.