Women located in rural, lower-income areas of the country, such as the Heartland Region, have limited access to physicians due to their location and economic status. In response to this, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland implemented a telemedicine-abortion procedure to aid in the prescribing and dispensing of mifepristone, the abortion pill, thus improving access to early-term abortions for women in rural areas. Numerous states, in the quest to illegalize abortion, have expressly or effectively outlawed telemedicine abortions.
The Author argues that abortion-specific restrictions on telemedicine violate the Fourteenth Amendment because they fail the undue burden test set forth in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The Author first argues that no reasonably related legitimate state interest lies behind the laws; telemedicine is used as a means of merely prescribing mifepristone, an FDA-approved drug for early-term pregnancies only, and maternal safety is not at issue. The Author then argues that women who rely on telemedicine abortions, such as those in rural, lowereconomic regions, are targeted by the legislation because they live great distances from abortion-services providers and are unable to afford the costs of traveling to the distant providers. As such, the Author argues that telemedicine-abortion restrictions completely ban an effective means of providing a safe, federally approved method of abortion for rural, lower-income women, creating a substantial obstacle to their right to choose abortion.