On Thursday, the state of Washington enacted five bills to improve access to abortion and gender transition services while also increasing protections for individuals.
Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, recently blogged that he supports freedom of choice in areas such as abortion and gender transition.
Inslee argued that “the right of choice is an issue of freedom.” Health care decisions must remain in the hands of Washington residents. Authoritarian and overreaching governments will be unable to exert influence in the United governments capital thanks to these regulations.
The Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore of Washington, Karen Keiser, introduced Senate Bill 5768 that authorized the distribution of 30,000 dosages of the abortion medication mifepristone by the Washington Department of Corrections. The governor had purchased the prescription the previous month. Three days before the District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered the Food and medicine Administration (FDA) to revoke the medicine’s approval, Inslee was able to obtain the abortion pill.
Before the Senate vote earlier this month, Keiser defended mifepristone’s safety and efficacy. However, concerns remain about the drug’s safety. Earlier this year, 22 state attorneys general wrote a memorandum to the FDA requesting a reversal of its decision to prohibit retail pharmacies from selling abortion drugs.
People were concerned about the safety of the abortion drug even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer. More than a hundred senators and congressmen requested the FDA in 2021 to ensure the safe distribution of mifepristone after the FDA reversed a Trump administration rule requiring women to obtain the drug from a doctor in person.
Mifepristone has been linked to at least dozens of fatalities and hundreds of life-threatening adverse effects, according to Republican senators from Texas and Mississippi, August Pfluger and Cindy Hyde-Smith, respectively, who made these claims in February. According to Pfluger and Hyde-Smith, the FDA is using loopholes to approve medications swiftly by labeling pregnancy as a “illness” and mifepristone as having “meaningful therapeutic benefit.”
Democratic State Representative Drew Hansen signed House Bill 1469 into law, making Washington a sanctuary state for anyone seeking abortions or gender-affirming medical care. It is against the law to comply with interstate requests or inquiries. It also prohibits extraditing anyone who violate the abortion or gender transition legislation of another state.
Hansen’s measure, sometimes known as the “Shield Law,” has been in the works since last summer’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization verdict.
Democrat State Representative Marcus Riccelli authored HB 1340, the third piece of legislation. Providers who assist patients in Washington or other jurisdictions in obtaining abortions or gender-affirming procedures are shielded from legal repercussions, including the suspension or revocation of their licenses. Abortionists who have run afoul of the law in other states can still practice lawfully in Washington.
Representative Vandana Slatter (D) drafted House Bill 1155. Companies are required to get consent before collecting personal health information and are prohibited from using geofencing to collect and sell data from specific locations. The law was enacted in part to shield transgender people and women who want to undergo abortions.
SB 5242, introduced by Democratic state senator Annette Cleveland, would prohibit health insurers from requiring individuals to pay any portion of the cost of an abortion out of pocket.
The state of Washington, according to Inslee, will spend more than $15 million over the next two years to subsidize abortion costs. This is in addition to the previous five legislation. On the other hand, Keiser stated on Thursday that as much as $23 million might be allocated to abortion clinics.
Keiser said that the federal government must not allow “extremist judges in other states” to restrict a woman’s ability to make her own reproductive choices.