Senator John Thune says (and the SDGOP spin blog he pays for dutifully regurgitates) that the overturning of Roe v. Wade is a “victory for life.”
Dobbs doesn’t feel like a victory for Becky Schwarz or millions of other Americans who need methotrexate to live with their illnesses:
Six days after the Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion, lupus patient Becky Schwarz got an unexpected message from her rheumatologist.
“This is a notice to let you know that we are pausing all prescriptions and subsequent refills of methotrexate,” the message read. “This decision has been made in response to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.”
Schwarz was stunned. Methotrexate is a cheap, common drug prescribed to millions of Americans. Like her, many have rheumatic illnesses. Others take it to treat inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis or cancer.
Yet few are aware that it is used off-label to end ectopic pregnancies, or that it could be restricted by doctors or pharmacists even in states like Virginia that do not ban abortion [Sonja Sharp, “Post-Roe, Many Autoimmune Patients Lose Access to ‘Gold Standard’ Drug,” Los Angeles Times, 2022.07.11].
Pharmacists caught in the uncertainty surrounding new abortion bans are balking at filling prescriptions:
“It’s happening all over,” Donald Miller, PharmD, professor of pharmacy practice at North Dakota State University in Fargo, said in an interview. “Pharmacists are reluctant to dispense it, and rheumatologists are reluctant to prescribe it because they’re afraid of going to jail” [Jennifer Lubell, “Physicians Urged to Write Indications on Drug Scripts as Methotrexate Users Face New Barriers Under Roe v. Wade Decision,” Medscape, 2022.07.12].
This restriction of a cheap, effective, and widely used drug manages to unfairly target women just like abortion bans:
Those patients represent about 2% of the 5 million Americans who take methotrexate. Yet this uncommon, off-label use is the basis for tight new restrictions on a medication that is disproportionately prescribed to women and girls of reproductive age.
“The majority of rheumatic diseases affect females at substantially higher rates than males,” Edens explained. “The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in women to men is 3 to 1. For lupus it’s 10 to 1. And so rheumatology is a very female-predominate patient population.”
…Nevertheless, some doctors have already stopped prescribing methotrexate rather than risk falling afoul of antiabortion laws [Sharp, 2022.07.11].
Pharmacists caught in the uncertainty surrounding new abortion bans are balking at filling prescriptions:
“It’s happening all over,” Donald Miller, PharmD, professor of pharmacy practice at North Dakota State University in Fargo, said in an interview. “Pharmacists are reluctant to dispense it, and rheumatologists are reluctant to prescribe it because they’re afraid of going to jail” [Jennifer Lubell, “Physicians Urged to Write Indications on Drug Scripts as Methotrexate Users Face New Barriers Under Roe v. Wade Decision,” Medscape, 2022.07.12].
As pharmacists grill women about whether they are pregnant or just flatly deny methotrexate to any female who appears to be of child-bearing age, the Alito Court and misogynist states are aggravating the inequality women already experience in health care:
“My fear is that in this new age of widespread abortion restriction, people who have a uterus and are within reproductive age will suffer from undertreated diseases,” Dr. Birru Talabi said.
“These abortion laws will further widen the already existent inequity in healthcare as women with autoimmune conditions will be disproportionately impacted compared to men,” [said] Dr. Ashima Makol
“This is particularly worrisome in patients with organ- or life threatening diseases who use medications with a fetotoxic potential such as mycophenolate or cyclophosphamide. Will a patient with kidney-threatening lupus disease—lupus nephritis— be fated to dialysis or the effects of high dose, prolonged steroids because no clinician is willing to prescribe mycophenolate or cyclophosphamide?” added Dr. Birru Talabi [Deep Shukla, “How Overturning Roe v. Wade Is Affecting Access to Autoimmune Medications,” Medical News Today, 2022.07.08].
Dobbs is no victory for life. Thune’s Alito Court has struck a victory for control, for misogyny, and, ultimately, for sickness and death.
It’s not a problem here in Blue State America where women’s rights are state’s rights.
Women don’t look to men to solve their problems, yet the majority of men feel it’s their job to give advice that’s not been requested.
In lieu of the above disclaimer perhaps a mail order pharmacy and an anonymous private post office box would help.
So pharmacies will fill these prescriptions for men but not women?
Politicians and attorneys and judges should not be in the business if determining health care treatments for anyone. Period.