Could Planned Parenthood be a pharmacy?

Is that the potential solution to the proliferation of dangerous prescription sites?

Part of this newsletter is designed to offer some ideas to leading figures. As I pondered the issue of phony online pharmacies over the weekend, I thought of possible solutions to the problem that would protect the safety of women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies with an abortion pill. 

Given that there are 35,000 fraudulent pharmacy websites marketing to women, one of the things that might help is if a provider with significant name recognition also provided prescription services. I don’t know if Planned Parenthood or Whole Women’s Health could fill medications and send them to women. That would help them avoid obscurely named websites that they wouldn’t know to trust or not. 

I envisioned it like this. Women could visit Planned Parenthood’s site. They could land on a portal to schedule a telehealth consultation. After meeting with a certified doctor, then they could get a prescription sent to them through the mail at the address that was included in their registration for a consultation. It would cut out the unnecessary pharmaceutical services and women would just say that they, “went to Planned Parenthood online to get the pill.” 

There would have to be legislation designed to protect distribution throughout all the commonwealths. If it were passed by Congress and signed by the president, the concept of federalism would prevent states from regulating the mailing of abortion medication by a certified provider to any part of the United States. 

There could be additional benefits to this. Since abortion providers would be doing it online, the harassment and danger they face would be lessened than it was when they performed them at clinics. That might increase provider numbers, which is also something that has troubled this medical sector for a while. 

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t continue to organize rallies and political support to keep aspiration abortion legal. It’s just a practical approach to addressing a new problem that has presented itself.