Public universities in Massachusetts are up against a Thursday deadline to submit "abortion readiness plans" to provide abortion pills or make referrals to where students can obtain the termination drugs.
Bay State institutions are required to submit the plans according to a July 2022 bill signed by Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) in response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
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“’Abortion readiness’ is an oxymoron for a violent act against a woman and her baby," E.V. Osment, vice president of communications for SBA Pro-Life America, told the Washington Examiner. "When taking abortion pills, women report being unprepared for the experience of severe pain, heavy bleeding, and seeing the body of their child as they deliver in the toilet or shower."
The state government prepared a 47-page "toolkit" with the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation, an organization focused on "expanding abortion," to guide schools in their preparation of the plans, under which some schools will provide the drugs on campus and others will make referrals.
The "toolkit" also urges the expansion of abortion access because it "encourages all public institutions of higher education to carefully consider and stretch their capacity to provide sexual and reproductive health services, including medication abortion services, on campus."
According to the document, 600 to 1,380 public university students in the state "need abortion" every year. Massachusetts law permits abortions for any reason up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and allows the procedure further into pregnancy in the event a woman's physical or mental health is in danger or doctors detect a defect that would be fatal to a baby.
Once the universities submit their abortion plans, the government will review them by Jan. 31 and help the universities implement them.
The University of Massachusetts, Amherst has been making abortion pills available to students since the fall of last year, a move school Executive Director for Strategic Communications Ed Blaguszewski said came from students complaining about the "notable distance to providers from the Amherst campus," according to MassLive.
UMass Amherst was also the site of a demand from Healey to start a stockpile of abortion drugs after a federal court in Texas challenged the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, the first pill of a two-drug sequence to terminate a pregnancy.
"In Massachusetts, we know that access to reproductive health care options is critical for safe and informed decision making," Healey said in a press release. "Colleges and universities have a responsibility to ensure this access for their students, but they don’t have to go it alone."
However, those who encourage alternatives to abortion, such as providing child care or encouraging adoption, argue that "safe and informed decision making" is misleading.
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Citing polls that show 60% of women who have had abortions report feeling some form of pressure or coercion to terminate their pregnancies, Osment said, "Real informed consent would entail providing accurate information about potential complications, including negative mental health impacts, screening for coercion, and information about the life-affirming options available to her."
"But the abortion industry lies, claiming abortion pills are ‘safer than Tylenol,’ abandons young women to self-abort in dorm rooms without medical supervision, and encourages them to hide their abortion from ER doctors," she continued. "Their carelessness puts students at rural colleges who may be many miles from the nearest hospital in a particularly dangerous situation."