The San Diego County Board of Supervisors have passed a measure that will allow the county to secure an emergency stockpile of medication-based abortion treatments Misoprostol and Mifepristone.
Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, who made the proposal, was joined by colleagues Monica Montgomery Steppe and Nora Vargas. Supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond voted no.
The board directed Sarah Aghassi, interim chief administrative officer, to add support for abortion medications to the county's 2024 Legislative Program.
Aghassi will also look at ways to ensure adequate access to the drugs - - including with local clinics, and medical and telehealth providers — and report back to the board at a later date.
The approval Tuesday followed a failed attempt on April 9, which lacked the required number of votes to pass.
At the time, only three board members were present. Lawson-Remer and Montgomery Steppe voted yes, while Desmond was opposed. Anderson was absent during the vote, while Vargas left the meeting earlier.
After her proposal passed, Lawson-Remer said leaders "have a responsibility to protect reproductive freedom, and (Tuesday's) action by the majority of the supervisors signals to childbearing San Diegans that we are committed to making medication for abortion treatment available to them."
"A lot of misinformation is circulating about Mifepristone, but an important fact for people to know is that it helps people who suffer from natural pregnancy loss, in addition to stopping pregnancies in the early stages. This medication needs to be accessible," she added.
Ahead of an anticipated U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Lawson-Remer last month called for the county to secure its emergency stockpile of the drug.
FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, involves the anti-abortion group AHM suing the Food and Drug Administration over its approval of Mifepristone, was filed shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
Mifepristone is an oral medication taken with Misoprostol to terminate an early-stage pregnancy by blocking the hormone progesterone. It can also be utilized to help aid in the process when a person is suffering from a pregnancy loss and helps to keep individuals from needing surgery or waiting for the pregnancy to pass on its own, which can take up to eight weeks.
"Reproductive freedom is under attack and it's our responsibility to help uphold a woman's right to abortion access," Lawson-Remer said in an earlier statement.
During the April 9 meeting, Desmond said the county has nothing to do with pill management — but the state of California has stockpiled 2 million of the abortion medication pills. He added that he thinks it's unlikely the abortion medications will ever be restricted in California.
On that same day, Anderson said the proposal "was nothing more than political grandstanding and when it inevitably comes back before the board I will vote no."
The medication was approved by the FDA in 2000. Initially, the FDA imposed conditions on how the drug could be prescribed and used, such as a requirement that the drug be dispensed in person by a doctor, and only through the seventh week of pregnancy.
Women taking Mifepristone had to make three visits to a health care provider — a first visit to take Mifepristone; a second visit two days later to take Misoprostol; and a third visit two weeks after the initial visit to confirm that the pregnancy had been terminated.
Since then, the requirements have been relaxed and medication-induced abortions have been easier to obtain, which is what Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has pivoted to suing the agency over.
AHM "upholds and promotes the fundamental principles of Hippocratic medicine," according to a statement on the group's website. "These principles include protecting the vulnerable at the beginning and end of life."
There are 36 states that allow the drug to be prescribed while 14 have banned it. It is used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the nation.
A 2018 report titled "The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States" found "the risks of medication abortion are similar in magnitude to the risks of taking commonly prescribed and over-the-counter medications such as antibiotics and NSAIDs."
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