In an attempt to ban tele-med abortions and make obtaining a medication abortion even more onerous for women, many states have proposed laws forcing women and doctors to meet face to face and in person both prior to, during, and as a follow up to taking RU486.  The process has become so orchestrated — and fraught with potential felonies — that Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood affiliates have given up on providing abortions via medication all together.

Now, medical science proves that all of that extra face-to-face time is totally unnecessary. 

Via Med Page Today:

Almost half of women undergoing medical abortion – 20 of 43 — were able to avoid a follow-up office visit through phone contacts, said researcher Diana Samberg, MS, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

“Women choosing phone follow-up are not more likely to experience complications or be lost to follow-up,” she said in her oral presentation. “Phone follow-up is feasible for medical abortion and can assess the need for further in-person follow-up.”

Samberg said medical abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol has been shown to be safe and effective up to 63 days of gestation. The typical management requires a transvaginal ultrasound one week later and two to three office visits. A pilot study in 2010 showed that a phone follow-up of women undergoing medical abortion was feasible, and that 64% of the women did not require follow-up visits, she noted.

Of course, if science mattered at all to the politicians pushing the laws, they’d never be written in the first place.