In response to new reporting that MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson railed against medication abortion and access to telemedicine for reproductive health care, DNC spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement: 

“MAGA Mike Johnson says something straight out of Donald Trump’s anti-choice playbook every time he opens his mouth, and this rant against medication abortion and telemedicine is just another step in his crusade to rip away reproductive health care from women across the country. Johnson’s plan to further restrict women’s health care and basic freedoms is out of touch and downright cruel — but given Trump’s agenda to ban abortion nationwide, it’s no surprise. If Johnson wants to continue ignoring the voters who keep rejecting Republicans’ anti-choice agenda, he’s in for the loss of a lifetime this November.”

In an unhinged rant, MAGA Mike Johnson railed against access to medication abortion and telemedicine that provides women with necessary reproductive health care.

Johnson: “One of the things we’re trying to be on the lookout for is the rise, the use of chemical abortions because there’s this move towards telemedicine and off-site medical treatment and that kind of thing. So there will be a push and, you know, the other side will say, ‘This is very compassionate, what about the evolving nature of medicine, we need to be able to treat people remotely, and so we’ll just mail them a chemical that will induce the abortion’ — a pill or syringe or whatever it is. 

“We have to be very vigilant about that, the states are going to have to ramp up regulation of off-site medical treatment — and those are good innovations because it helps a lot of people when you’re talking about true medical help. But in the abortion industry, Planned Parenthood and the abortion cartels are going to try their best to maximize profits with that of course, because they always put profit over people. And we’ve got to be watching for that, that’s going to be one of these new emerging areas, I think, as telemedicine takes off and becomes more common and more prevalent. So particularly out in the rural areas, you know, it’s going to be a big thing to watch. 

“So we’ll have some legislation to try and address that as well, but again, I keep coming back to the same issue that, you know, it really comes down to the election if … the pro-abortion Democrats are allowed to maintain control of the House, we’re kind of stuck on go because we can’t move this important legislation. And they’re never going to allow it in any of the larger bills. So we got to be really active and engaged in this cycle.”

Johnson has a long record of attacking reproductive health care — including co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, which could rip away access to IVF treatment from families across the country. 

Business Insider: “Most House Republicans have cosponsored a bill declaring that life begins from the moment of conception, a position under increased scrutiny after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are ‘unborn children.’

“This Congress, 125 House Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson — have cosponsored the ‘Life at Conception Act,’ which states that the term ‘human being’ includes ‘all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.’

“The bill does not include any exception for in vitro fertilization (IVF), a reproductive treatment that allows mothers to fertilize several eggs outside the womb in order to increase the chances of a viable pregnancy.”

NBC News: “But with the landmark Roe ruling protecting those rights gone, efforts by conservative lawmakers and judges to advance fetal personhood bills pose a real threat to some fertility treatments, including IVF, reproductive rights advocates say.”

Johnson: “🚨🚨BREAKING: Late yesterday, the La. Department of Health informed abortion facilities in our state that the right to life has now been RESTORED!  

Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K.”

Jezebel: “[Johnson] expressed hope that Roe v. Wade would someday be overturned, railed against people supposedly ‘using abortion as birth control’ and appeared to blame school shootings on abortion: ‘When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.’”

Reminder: Johnson’s MAGA leader Donald Trump appealed a pandemic-era court order that allowed women to take abortion medication without visiting a doctor in person.

CNBC: “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to reinstate abortion pill restrictions judge has suspended due to coronavirus”

19th News: “The [Trump] administration is currently arguing that the Supreme Court undo a lower court order that allowed people in the pandemic to take mifepristone — a drug used as part of medication abortions — from home, without visiting a doctor in person. Appealing such a ruling straight to the Supreme Court and bypassing the appeals process was uncommon prior to Trump’s presidency, but has become a frequent strategy for the administration.”

NPR: “Supreme Court OKs White House Request To Limit Abortion Pill Access During Pandemic”

Kaiser Family Foundation: “On March 4, 2019, the Trump Administration published new final regulations that restores Reagan-era restrictions regarding abortion and Title X. The primary goal of these regulations is to block the availability of federal funds to family planning providers, such as Planned Parenthood, that also offer abortion services with non-Title X funds and to prohibit sites that receive Title X funds from referring pregnant patients to other providers for abortion services.”

Trump, Johnson, and their MAGA allies have made extremely clear that if given the chance, they’ll ban abortion nationwide.

Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”

Trump: “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life. And it’s very important.” 

Trump on if he would sign a six-week national abortion ban: “I’m looking at all [options].”

Project 2025: “FDA should … Reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs because the politicized approval process was illegal from the start. … Now that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Constitution contains no right to an abortion, the FDA is ethically and legally obliged to revisit and withdraw its initial approval, which was premised on pregnancy being an ‘illness’ and abortion being ‘therapeutically’ effective at treating this ‘illness.’ The FDA is statutorily charged with guaranteeing the safety and efficacy of drugs and therefore should withdraw this drug that is proven to be dangerous to women and by definition fatally unsafe for unborn children.”

Axios: “The Heritage Foundation, which has proposed detailed policies for a potential GOP administration, argues that Comstock ‘unambiguously prohibits mailing abortion drugs’ and says the next administration should ‘enforce federal law against providers and distributors of [abortion] pills.’”

The Atlantic: “Their next goal will be ending legal abortion in America once and for all. … Their ultimate aim in reviving the Comstock Act is to use it to shut down every abortion facility “in all 50 states.’”