Lopez: The real sisterhood

In the wake of this year's presidential election, women were described as being in a state of shock that one of their own, Kamala Harris, had not been elected president of the United States.

"Liberal women, in particular, have spent recent days practically stunned," an above-the-fold front page New York Times story reported.

But some of us women don't vote for any woman at any cost. And one does not have to be a fan of Donald Trump to consider that women – especially vulnerable young women – might be safer under a Trump administration, even knowing what we know about his personal life.

I once mentioned poverty alleviation efforts undertaken by the Heritage Foundation at a forum at Georgetown University, and much of the audience hissed. Heritage is not often a welcome broker on the left. But anyone of any ideological stripe who cares about women ought to look at a new research paper Heritage has published about the impact of the increased accessibility of mifepristone, known as the abortion pill. Looking at South Carolina, New Jersey and Arkansas, emergency room visits because of abortion-pill use have increased since pregnant women no longer need to make in-office visits for the medication.

The Heritage Foundation is recommending the Food and Drug Administration "reinstate the mandatory in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion pill and reverse its decision allowing pharmacies to dispense the drug." That's not in the least misogynistic. It's a matter of basic humanity.

In the report, Jonathan Abbamonte points out that because women are not necessarily meeting in person with a provider before obtaining the abortion pill, it becomes "difficult or impossible for prescribers of the pill to effectively screen women for possible underlying health risk factors and contraindications." He explains: "Some contraindications of mifepristone are potentially life-threatening such an ectopic pregnancy which can only be effectively screened for with an ultrasound. Mifepristone cannot be used to treat ectopic pregnancy."

And it's the most vulnerable who suffer the most. I think of a Black 17-year-old high school student I met outside the flagship Planned Parenthood in Manhattan in spring 2021. She didn't want an abortion, but her mother was insisting. She had already started the chemical-abortion process, on the way to picking up her little brother from day care. There's a way to revere the process with hormones once it has begun. She was interested, but her mother had hung up the phone when the pregnant woman was talking with someone who knew a doctor who could help her. Maybe, at least, her mother held her as she saw the remains of her unborn child in their bathroom.

Not long later, that same woman was pregnant again, by the same boyfriend whom she was certain wanted to be a father. This time, she went to the Sisters of Life, Catholic nuns who care for pregnant women (and post-abortive women). She has a little one now, because she knew what she wanted and whom to go to. Now that's sisterhood showing up.

The Democratic convention this summer focused on the delusion that abortion-on-demand is pro-freedom and pro-woman. That's a lie. And there's proof to back that up, if you can recognize that even data dorks at the Heritage Foundation might have something to offer the sisterhood. It's not the kind of help the Kamala Harris administration would have provided.

klopez@nationalreview.com