BOSTON (LifeSiteNews) – The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) rolled out a “toolkit” in conjunction with a pro-abortion advocacy group to help taxpayer-funded colleges and universities establish “readiness plans” to distribute abortion pills to students, further solidifying the state’s standing as one of the most pro-abortion in the nation.
The state’s “Medication Abortion Toolkit for Public Colleges & Universities,” a joint production of DPH and the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation (RENF), stems from a law passed last year that purported to “expand protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care.”
“Promoting access to medication abortion on college campuses is critical to helping students get the reproductive health care they need in a safe and timely manner,” the document stated. “Some colleges and universities may directly provide medication abortion to students in the health center, others will provide information and referrals. What is required of a given college or university to meet the mandate of the law will vary depending on an assessment of institutional capability.”
It also encourages schools to “carefully consider and stretch their capacity to provide sexual and reproductive health services, including medication abortion services, on campus,” to “maximize access to services for students and advance the Commonwealth’s goals of high-quality and accessible sexual and reproductive health services for all residents.” Schools must submit their readiness plans by November 30 every year, with DPH issuing updated guidances at the end of every following January.
Of particular note are the multiple references to “values clarification workshops” that DPH advises schools to hold to “assess attitudes of staff regarding the provision of medication abortion” and address “misconceptions and misinformation about medication abortion.” The toolkit gives lip services to establishing “accommodations” for those who do not wish to participate in dispensing or referring for abortion drugs; however, it then mentions “integrat[ing] discussion of medication abortion care delivery into interview protocols with prospective clinical or support staff.”
“This section strongly implies that pro-life applicants to university health center jobs can, and even should, be weeded out during the interview process due to their opposition to abortion,” Massachusetts Family Institute spokeswoman Mariah Newell responded. “The MA DPH is clearly encouraging religious discrimination.” The group pledges to “take legal action on behalf of anyone who is denied a job at these university clinics because of their opposition to abortion.”
The toolkit also links to a sample outline for such a workshop, which states the goals of “identify[ing] the myths and reality surrounding the provision of abortion care in this country and the people who have abortions” as well as one’s “own beliefs and attitudes towards the provision of abortion care and the people who have abortions”; and “separate[ing one’s] personal beliefs from [one’s] professional role in the provision of abortion care.” The outline offers a bevy of statistics and talking points ostensibly to dismantle various “myths” about abortion’s motivations, methods, and safety (all of which pro-lifers have addressed), but nothing contending with the central reason people object to abortion: the fact that it destroys a living human child.
“This Toolkit comes on the heels of a recent push at the State House to obliterate parental rights when it comes to abortion and other treatments for their minor children,” the Massachusetts Family Institute added. “The radical abortion expansion bill, HB1599/SB1114 eliminates conscientious objections for medical professionals who oppose abortion, creates unsafe conditions for women seeking late-term abortions, and will likely violate the free speech rights of pregnancy resource centers.”
Evidence shows that abortion pills carry specific risks for the mothers who take them (on top of being lethal to their preborn children). A 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.”
Pro-lifers warn that with the Biden administration attempting to completely eliminate requirements that abortion pills be taken under any medical supervision or with medical support close by, those events are certain to increase.
“A November 2021 study by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” Catholic University of America research associate Michael New wrote. “They analyzed state Medicaid data of over 400,000 abortions from 17 states that fund elective abortions through their Medicaid programs. They found that the rate of abortion-pill-related emergency-room visits increased over 500 percent from 2002 through 2015. The rate of emergency-room visits for surgical abortions also increased during the same time period, but by a much smaller margin.’”
Yet the White House and the abortion lobby have determined that, with the overturn of Roe v. Wade last year allowing states to directly ban abortion for the first time in half a century, easy distribution of abortion pills across state lines is one of their most potent tactics for preserving abortion “access.
In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities last year led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64% of new facilities built last year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol.