The Ohio House Health Committee approved Senate Bill 260 today, Tuesday, December 15. The full House could vote on the bill by this Thursday.

When a person decides to have an abortion, they deserve safe, legal, affordable, and accessible care in their community. For many Ohioans, that means a local health center and a video conference with a prescribing physician. Don't let Ohio Republicans take that critical option away from your friends and neighbors.

In the midst of a pandemic, where everyone, including the Ohio Legislature has lauded the use of telemedicine as an important way to ensure patients have access to the healthcare they need while simultaneously eliminating the possibility of the spread of a deadly virus, that this legislature would choose to attack the use of telemedicine for a very specific procedure. 

Tell your state representative to stop Senate Bill 260, which bans telemedicine options for abortion providers and patients.

Instead of doing something about the very real issues killing people every single day, or addressing the housing crisis, the joblessness crisis, or food insecurity caused by this global pandemic, here we are again. This is the eighth bill this session using misinformation, stigma, and lies to restrict access to abortion care in Ohio.

Opponents of abortion access in Ohio, including many legislators, are spreading misinformation and blatant lies about the safety of medication abortion. The truth — the real truth — is that abortion-inducing medications produce far fewer complications than common over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol. Patients in Ohio receiving abortion medication using telemedicine are in a medical facility, in the physicial presence of health care staff. Only the prescribing doctor is participating by video call. Abortion by telemedicine is safe.

Right now, in Ohio our COVID-19 testing positivity rate is currently over 15%, a level in which the Ohio Department of Health recommends Ohioans not even travel to Ohio because of extremely high levels of disease spread in our communities. But this legislature is still considering a bill that would force people to travel across the state to get the healthcare they need and deserve, when there is a completely safe and effective way to provide that care right in their home community.