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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A bill that would restrict mail-order availability to certain medications is an attempt to chip away at abortion rights in Ohio, reproductive rights advocates said. The legislation, House Bill 324, is scheduled for a fourth hearing on Wednesday before the House Health Committee. Sponsored by Republican state Reps. Adam Mathews and Meredith Craig, the legislation aims to identify medications that cause ‘severe adverse effects’ in more than 5% of its users. For drugs meeting that threshold, it would ban mail-order sales and require doctors to see patients in-person before prescribing them. While the bill has the potential to impact a range of medications, reproductive rights advocates said in opponent testimony last month that the legislation is an attempt to restrict abortion access in the state, despite the constitutional protections afforded to them following the passage of the citizen-led reproductive rights amendment in 2023. One drug that could be covered is mifepristone, which often is used for medical abortions, abortion advocates say. According to the Ohio Constitution, “the state shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against an individual’s right” to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. The state may prohibit abortion after fetal viability, typically around 24-weeks of gestation. “Let’s call this what it is: a political attack on the will of the people who have so clearly demonstrated that reproductive rights are important to them,” Jaime Miracle, deputy director of Abortion Forward, said in opponent testimony before the House Health Committee. The bill would require the director of the Ohio Department of Health to determine if individual drugs cause “severe adverse effects in greater than 5% of the drug’s users,” including death, infection requiring hospitalization, hemorrhaging requiring hospitalization, organ failure or sepsis. That determination could be made based on insurance claims, data from the FDA and patient reports. The Food and Drug Administration has approved of mifepristone as a safe and effective drug for 25 years. In 2023, the FDA permanently removed in-person dispensing requirements after initially pausing it during the coronavirus pandemic. The change in policy allowed certified clinicians and pharmacies to prescribe and dispense the medication through the mail, which eliminated the need for an in-person clinic visit in many cases. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that provides independent health policy research, the expansion of telehealth services has increased access to services in areas where clinicians who provide abortion care are limited. That’s particularly true for those who live in rural communities, where some may need to travel long distances to obtain abortion services even in states where abortion is still permitted. Miracle added in her testimony that supporters of the bill have cited a single, non-peer reviewed report by an anti-abortion organization in their claim that mifepristone is more dangerous than decades of research have shown. That report, by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has not been published in a scholarly journal and its authors have refused to reveal their data sources, Miracle said. “Today, 12 states have banned abortion and another six states severely limit it with six-week bans or similar legislation. But amidst this chaos, it is estimated that one in four abortions in the US are obtained via telemedicine,” Miracle said. The House Health Committee may accept a substitute bill on the legislation on Wednesday, meaning that changes could be made before it potentially goes to the full House for a vote. The legislation would also have to be approved in the Ohio Senate.
