For many people with disabilities and chronic illness, having access to the right medication is vital. But since Roe v. Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court last month, women are being cut off from their medication by doctors or insurance companies, often without being offered an alternative, because those drugs are considered “abortifacients.”
Even in states where abortion is protected, some providers are afraid of state penalties or criminal consequences of anti-abortion laws that criminalize aiding and abetting an abortion.
Because some medications used to treat lupus, cancer or rheumatoid arthritis, for example, can cause a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, women deemed of childbearing age are being told that having a uterus precludes them from having access to the drugs required to function in everyday life. Even in states where abortion is protected, some providers are afraid of state penalties or criminal consequences of anti-abortion laws that criminalize aiding and abetting an abortion, even if the female patients are being prescribed these drugs to cope with conditions that are completely unrelated to pregnancy.
There are reports of children suffering from juvenile arthritis being denied the drug until they can show evidence that they have not been impregnated. Some pharmacies are also afraid of failing to meet the requirements of the various abortion restrictions and bans and have stopped filling prescriptions for methotrexate altogether. When questioned by Fox 5, CVS refused to comment directly on the issue but said they “encourage providers to include their diagnosis on the prescriptions they write to help ensure patients have quick and easy access to medications.” This uncertainty has left a lot of female patients confused, bewildered and feeling completely left in the dark as they receive phone calls or letters informing them they can no longer have access to the treatment they need.
Myisha Malone-King is one of those women. She’s a 41-year-old who lives in Baltimore, Maryland (notably, a state which protects abortion rights) and is a Crohn’s disease patient and advocate, a cancer survivor and the CEO of a chronic illness virtual community called Game Of Crohns Chronic Illness. She takes a drug called methotrexate to help her cope with her illness. The day after the Supreme Court reversed Roe, she received a stunning phone call. “I found [out] that I was taken off the medication and that it was no longer being covered the same day by phone call from my primary care doctor, my team of specialists for my Crohn’s disease as well as a call from my insurance company,” she told me.
“The next week I received a detailed letter in the mail from my insurance company, and primary care doctor specialist for my Crohn’s disease management explaining in detail that Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court.” Malone-King is now forced to find alternative medication. “It’s not fair. I don’t feel like I live in the land of opportunity and freedom because my freedom to choose was stripped away from me.”
Malone-King is already a mother of four kids and does not want more, but that isn’t stopping her state insurance provider from denying coverage of a medication she was prescribed well before women in America lost their constitutional right to abortion. Malone-King says she knows other women who have received the same news about their treatment. “I cried in part for myself and for other women whose life is affected,” she said. “I never thought that I would one day live in a world where my human right or anyone’s human right would be taken away or that it would affect me receiving life-saving medicine.”
“You are taking away our opportunity to actually live, without pain and further damage to our health. There is nothing life-affirming about that at all.” — Nitika Chopra, founder and CEO, Chronicon
The Arthritis Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for people living with arthritis, sounded the alarm in a statement a few days after Roe was overturned, warning that female patients’ prescriptions weren’t being filled. “Unfortunately, arthritis patients who rely on methotrexate are reporting difficulty accessing it. At least one state — Texas — allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for misoprostol and methotrexate, which together can be used for medical abortions.”
Chronic illness advocates are stupefied. Nitika Chopra, the founder of Chronicon, an online and in-person community for people dealing with chronic illness, says that she has been flooded with messages from women who are terrified. She herself was on methotrexate when she was experiencing severe psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. At the height of her illness a few years ago, was unable to walk without it. “If I had been denied access to medication I would be in debilitating pain, unable to work and perform day-to-day functions and most likely I would have experienced anxiety and depression as a comorbidity of the disease progression,” she said.
Chopra is now on a different course of medication but the thought of chronically ill women being denied the treatment they need infuriates her. “We are feeling devastated and scared because we take these medications to give us the best chance at living a full life so that our illnesses do not hold us back and cause more harm to our bodies. These aren’t treatment plans that are fun, or easy; they are serious and we rely on them because we have to, so being told that we will not or might not get access to something that we need is an added stress that no one needs while already managing the stress of a health condition.” The irony of course is that there is nothing “pro-life” about obstructing women from having access to life-saving medication. It’s merciless and inhumane. It reveals the true extent of an ideology that relies on emotional delusions like calling abortion, a procedure that can save a person’s life, “murder,” or unscientific parables like “life at conception” that, when taken seriously by lawmakers, creates irrationally cruel consequences — like refusing a person the medicine they need to live. There’s also nothing “pro-life” about forcing a woman who is sick to get off a medication that would prevent her from having children she does not want. “Denying people access to medication that allows them to live the best life possible is the very opposite of pro-life,” Chopra said. “You are taking away our opportunity to actually live, without pain and further damage to our health. There is nothing life-affirming about that at all.” Instead, the politicians who have been elected to serve women are now endangering them. If it was really about life being precious, wouldn’t there be a plan to make sure that people aren’t left to die? Anti-abortion advocates often gratuitously exploit public sympathy for disabled children to push deadly policies. But it’s become unambiguously clear that they only care about the disabled person’s life when they’re in the womb. Women with disabilities and chronic illnesses are not in incubators. They are not test subjects in the so-called “pro-life” experiment of implementing inane laws that go against every medical standard of ethics. Taken to its extreme, the anti-abortion movement is a threat to everyone. If it’s coming for disabled women, you can bet it’s coming for you too.
Liz Plank
Liz Plank is an award-winning journalist and author, was the host of "Positive Spin." Her book, "For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity," was published in 2019. 
