A friend reminded me years ago that “far too many of us have forgotten what an outrage abortion is.”

A nearly equal outrage is how we got to the point that Alaskans waiting to be born have no rights to speak of when their interests collide with an abortion-minded mother.

Prepare to be outraged just a bit more.

In a few short weeks, maybe less, your local pharmacist – the last major medical profession still barred from the abortion pill business – may finally be allowed to prescribe abortion drugs.

Just think: if Alaskans can order abortion pills by phone or internet, the most practical question is obvious: why wait days or even weeks for the abortion pills to arrive when you could just pick them up at the nearest pharmacy?

Right now, that’s not possible.

The 2024 Planned Parenthood – Advanced Practitioner Clinician (APC) opinion opened abortions to nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants. Thankfully, pharmacists were left out of that case.

Planned Parenthood is suing again – and likely to prevail –  in a case that seeks to let their nurse practitioners and midwives mail abortion pills into rural Alaska after a phone or internet consult with a pregnant woman.

Alaska’s courts are expected to block the current “hospital/clinic only rule” in the next few weeks – or sooner.

HB 195 must not be treated as a harmless “pharmacy modernization” bill.

But since Planned Parenthood doesn’t employ pharmacists, they are not suing for pharmacists’ rights to equal opportunity abortions (yes, that is really part of the case).

That is why House Bill 195 matters so much.

HB 195 does legislatively what Planned Parenthood and the courts haven’t – and likely won’t.

Through a Collaborative Practice Agreement (CPA), a pharmacist could prescribe, administer, and dispense abortion pills like mifepristone and misoprostol.

In plain English, HB 195 gives pharmacists a legal pathway into medical practices they could not otherwise provide on their own.

While HB 195 does not recognize or protect pharmacists’ equal opportunity and protection rights in the way Planned Parenthood’s lawsuits do for nurses and PAs, it allows them to share in the abortion business – and profits.

For the abortionist, the local pharmacy acts like the Amazon locker of abortion pills. The abortionist markets the abortion pills from virtually anywhere, and the local pharmacy serves as abortion-pill pickup hub.

This isn’t modernization. It’s infrastructure. And once the infrastructure is built, it won’t be conspiracy or theory for long.

Planned Parenthood won’t likely use the pharmacies because they have their own distribution system all figured out.

But independent or even out-of-state abortion doctors, nurses, and physician assistants may find the pharmacy fulfillment model attractive enough to form CPAs with willing pharmacies.

This is why HB 195 must not be treated as a harmless “pharmacy modernization” bill. It may have ordinary applications, but even ordinary laws can have extraordinary consequences – especially in a state where abortion policy has not been governed by the people’s representatives, but by activist judges and courts that have steadily removed one life-preserving protection after another.

In 1997, the Alaska Supreme Court found a “constitutional right to abortion.”  In 2024, the state’s Superior Court expanded abortion authority to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Now Planned Parenthood is asking the courts to remove the “hospital/clinic only” limitation for abortion pills.

If HB 195 is enacted now, then yet another protective barrier to abortion will fall.

With the “hospital/clinic only” rule blocked by the courts, a Collaborative Practice Agreement would allow an abortion doctor to bring a pharmacist into the abortion pill business as a partner in the CPA.

This isn’t modernization. It’s infrastructure. And once the infrastructure is built, it won’t be conspiracy or theory for long.

Without Governor Dunleavy’s veto, Alaska will see abortion pill access move from two Planned Parenthood abortion sites to smartphones, mailboxes, and pharmacy counters.

The same places our families pick up antibiotics, insulin, baby formula, and diapers could become the next link in the abortion pill supply chain.

Alaskans must not accept that quietly.

Governor Dunleavy must veto HB 195.

If you believe children of all ages and stages of development deserve the same legal protections you and I enjoy, and that pharmacy law should not be a back door for abortion pill expansion, you should contact Governor Dunleavy immediately and urge him to veto HB 195 before the June 17 deadline.

TAKING ACTION

— Call Governor Dunleavy: Veto HB 195 at (907) 465-3500.

— Get the facts about HB 195 HERE.

— Read HB 195 HERE.

— See the Official Legislative Record HERE.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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