Last month, the Supreme Court stripped away the fundamental right of American women and other pregnant people to control their own bodies and futures. Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s response has been slow and inadequate. Health and Human Services Secretary, Xavier Becerra, essentially threw his hands up, saying, “Unless we’re all going to say the word of the Supreme Court will no longer have value, we have to heed the word of the Supreme Court.” However, the Food & Drug Administration can expand access to abortion pills, and support the healthcare of millions of American women, pregnant people and families.

We cannot have our leaders give up on our fundamental rights. I have called upon Congress to immediately codify Roe v. Wade to override the Supreme Court and secure a federal right to abortion. But there are also proactive steps the Biden administration can take to mitigate some of the Court’s damage without Congress – especially steps by one agency: the FDA.

As anti-choice states drive out abortion providers and brick-and-mortar clinics, more people seeking to terminate a pregnancy will rely on abortion pills. Abortion pills (also known as “medication abortion”) already account for nearly 40 percent of all abortions in the United States. This two-drug regimen — combining the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol — is safe and effective. They essentially induce the mechanism of a miscarriage safely. It successfully ends an unwanted pregnancy 95% of the time, with an infinitesimal rate of serious complications (requiring hospitalization just 0.4% of the time).

[Read Related: Enduring the Fight for Freedom]

The need for abortion pills will only grow in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision. The FDA must step up to do its part to expand access to them. The FDA has been far too conservative when it comes to regulating medication abortion. Even though medication abortion was available in Europe in the late 1980s, it wasn’t approved for use in the United States until 2000, largely due to political pressure from anti-abortion activists. Even then, the FDA only approved abortion pills through 10 weeks of pregnancy, even though the World Health Organization has found they can safely be used through 12 weeks. 

The FDA should extend the approved use period for medication abortion from 10 weeks to 12, consistent with the global standard. Two additional weeks may not sound like a lot, but after Dobbs, every extra day counts. Many women and pregnant people do not realize they are pregnant until six or eight weeks. Having an extra two weeks to use abortion pills can make all the difference for some women in the post-Roe world.

The FDA also attaches extreme and unnecessary restrictions on medication abortion access. Under FDA regulations (known as a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS), abortion pills can only be prescribed by physicians and pharmacies that obtain a special certification from the drug’s manufacturers. That means that if you need abortion pills, you can’t get them over-the-counter, and you can’t just count on getting them from your primary care physician or OB-GYN, or from your neighborhood pharmacy. It also means that even though medication abortion is safer than Penicillin or Viagra, it is regulated more stringently than opioids like Fentanyl. 

[Read Related: The ‘Dobbs’ Decision: What Does it Mean? Where do we go From Here?]

Last year, the FDA finally jettisoned even more extreme rules requiring that medication abortion be dispensed in person in a doctor’s office. But the FDA still has not yet finalized rules for how pharmacies can get certified to dispense abortion pills, meaning that this medication may not be available in drug stores until the end of this year.

That is simply unacceptable after Dobbs. The FDA needs to drastically expedite this timeline to get pills in pharmacies now. And more fundamentally, as medical groups and advocacy organizations have argued, the FDA should eliminate these needless restrictions entirely to allow any licensed doctor or pharmacy to prescribe and dispense abortion pills. 

While the FDA can ease access barriers to abortion pills, the Biden administration needs to give providers cover to prescribe them. By declaring abortion access a public health emergency, the administration can invoke emergency legal protections that allow doctors to freely prescribe these pills across state lines without fear of prosecution or sanctions. Simultaneously, The Department of Justice must challenge state laws that defy the federal government by denying their residents access to a federally-approved medication. 

[Read Related: Pregnancy and Infant Loss in South Asian Communities]

As I’ve explained before, the FDA is an institution desperately in need of reform so that it is not standing in the way of safe food and drugs that Americans need – whether European baby formula or essential medication like abortion pills. But first, it must meet this moment to help mitigate the harm wrought by the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. The health and liberty of millions of American women and pregnant people depend on it.

Feature photo courtesy of Suraj Patel.

Suraj Patel is a 38-year-old attorney and Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics at NYU who worked for President Obama. He is a Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 12th Congressional District in Manhattan in a generational race between two incumbents who have been in office since 1992. He’s running because New York needs a new generation of leaders with fresh ideas, new arguments and the energy to get things done and finally play offense. Suraj is a proud first-generation South Asian American.

The August Primary is scheduled for August 23, 2022, with Early Voting from August 13th to August 21st and will include elections for these offices: U.S. House of Representatives and State Senate

• You can request an absentee request form: https://nycabsentee.com/absentee
• Election Day (Aug 23( and Early Vote (Aug 13-21). Find your location: https://findmypollsite.vote.nyc/

Abortion resources

• Planned Parenthood
• The National Abortion Federation

If you are in a crisis:

• Call or text 988 to access the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline 

• Text HOME to 741741 to reach a volunteer Crisis Counselor

The opinions expressed by the writer of this piece, and those providing comments thereon (collectively, the “Writers”), are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any of its employees, directors, officers, affiliates, or assigns (collectively, “BGM”). BGM is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Writers. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you have a complaint about this content, please email us at hello@browngirlmagazine.com. This post is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.

By Suraj Patel

Suraj Patel is a 38 year-old attorney and Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics at NYU who worked for President Obama. … Read more ›

Every year on August 5th, the Sikh American community remembers one of our community’s most devastating tragedies in recent memory — the Oak Creek massacre. On this day in 2012, a white supremacist gunman entered the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, a gurdwara (Sikh house of worship) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin where he shot and killed six worshippers and severely injured others. This violent attack was the deadliest mass shooting targeting Sikh Americans in U.S. history, and at the time, was one of the worst attacks on a U.S. house of worship in decades. Six worshippers — Paramjit Kaur Saini, Sita Singh, Ranjit Singh, Prakash Singh, Suveg Singh Khattra, and Satwant Singh Kaleka — were killed on that horrific day. An additional community member, Baba Punjab Singh, was severely paralyzed and ultimately passed away from complications related to his injuries in 2020. Others, including Bhai Santokh Singh and responding police officer and hero, Lt. Brian Murphy, were seriously wounded during the shooting. 

[Read Related: Oak Creek Gurdwara Massacre’s 4th Anniversary: Young Sikhs Express Optimism for the Continued Struggle Against Hate and Ignorance]

In 2022, the community came together to demonstrate that we are undaunted. My organization, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) joined in supporting the anniversary observance at Oak Creek: a remembrance event centered around the theme of “Heal, Unite, Act.” The Oak Creek Sikh community hosted a series of in-person events, including the 10th Annual Oak Creek Sikh Memorial Anniversary Candlelight Remembrance Vigil on Friday, August 5, 2022. The program included a representative from the White House, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Oak Creek Mayor Dan Bukiewicz, and representatives of the families who lost loved ones. Being there in Oak Creek 10 years after the tragedy was deeply meaningful — both to see the inspiring resilience of this community and to remember how much remains to be done.

In D.C., SALDEF continues to fight for policies that improve the lives of Sikh Americans. I had the honor of chairing the most recent iteration of the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council at the Department of Homeland Security, providing recommendations at the request of Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas. Consequently, the three subcommittees published a report that emphasized the importance of greater accessibility, greater equity, and greater transparency in counterterrorism efforts that for too long revolved around surveilling populations like the one that was senselessly attacked at the Oak Creek gurdwara in 2012. Leading the FBSAC as a Sikh woman, and representing a community that was highly targeted alongside Muslims by both white supremacists and in post-9/11 counterterrorism profiling, was an opportunity to push the Council to advocate more fiercely for further information-sharing between communities and law enforcement, extending grant opportunities for security for Gurdwaras and other houses of worship, and building trust between the government and Sikh communities. In addition, I advocated for accountability for the damage needlessly caused to Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and Hindu (MASSAH) communities by federal agencies historically pursuing “counterterrorism” objectives which has resulted in eroded trust rather than the development of strong partnerships. 

Although we have made great strides in this country, there is still more to do. Through our work we have partnered with many across the nation to come together and find solutions through tenets central to Sikhism and America — unity, love, and equality. SALDEF continues to strongly endorse the policy framework articulated across the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 350 / S. 963); Justice for Victims of Hate Crimes Act; and the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) Improvement Act (H.R. 6825). We believe strongly in mandating federal agencies to create dedicated offices to investigate domestic terrorism; allowing prosecutors to feasibly indict perpetrators of hate crimes; and allowing religious nonprofits to access federal funding to enhance their own security.

[Read Related: Anti-Sikh Hate is on the Rise: Here’s What we can Do]

While 11 years have passed, the effects of the Oak Creek shooting are never far from the minds of Sikh American advocates and the community we serve. SALDEF will not stop taking a stand against senseless violence and hate crimes. We continue to work in unity with our community and movement partners, and fight for better policies that will actively keep all of our communities safe. Through tragedy, we find hope. We know there can be a world where people from all backgrounds and cultures can practice their faith freely and, even though it has eluded the Sikh American community in the past, we still believe this world is possible.

Photo Courtesy of Amrita Kular

The opinions expressed by the writer of this piece, and those providing comments thereon (collectively, the “Writers”), are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any of its employees, directors, officers, affiliates, or assigns (collectively, “BGM”). BGM is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Writers. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you have a complaint about this content, please email us at Staff@browngirlmagazine.com. This post is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.

By Kiran Kaur Gill

Kiran Kaur Gill is an accomplished professional with exemplary executive experience. In her role as Executive Director, she is responsible … Read more ›