Washington’s Abortion Pill Free-for-All Shatters Dems’ ‘Choice’ Façade

In Democrats’ rush to distribute Washington state’s massive abortion pill stockpile like Easter candy, it’s astonishing they didn’t trip over what they left behind: their narrative.

For decades, Democrats have positioned themselves as the defenders of women. They’ve lectured us all about so-called “reproductive freedom” and how the “right to choose” an abortion is necessary for our health. Yet women’s health and freedom of choice were the last things on the minds of Washington’s Democratic state senators in February, when they shouted down proposed safeguards for both to pass Senate Bill 5917. (RELATED: New Planned Parenthood Report Has a Disturbing Takeaway)

The unprecedented law, signed on March 14, effectively turns Washington into the nation’s abortion pill PEZ dispenser. It allows the Washington State Department of Corrections to distribute its stash of the abortion drug mifepristone to “any person,” in any state — without a doctor’s visit, fully informed consent, or even payment. (RELATED: The Nation Must Face the Abortion Pill Legal Monster)

The department was forced to return some 30,000 expired pills — originally purchased for about $1.3 million — to the manufacturer earlier this year, though it retains about 17,000 doses. The stockpile was a parting gift from former Gov. Jay Inslee, prompted by Democrats’ fearmongering after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. (RELATED: Hawley Pushes Bill to Ban ‘Inherently Dangerous’ Abortion Pill Nationwide)

In hindsight, hoarding tens of thousands of abortion pills for the state’s sex-segregated female prison inmates probably wasn’t the smartest use of taxpayer dollars. Now, facing an entirely predictable lack of demand, Washington is practically begging women to take the pills off their hands, consequences be damned. (RELATED: Colleges Are Becoming Abortion Clinics)

Denied a Second Choice

A Restoration of America Foundation study released last year found that about 11 percent of chemical abortion patients experience serious side effects ranging from sepsis and bacterial infections to hemorrhage and even death. (RELATED: Why Is RFK Jr.’s FDA Allowing Abortionists to Flood Red States With Pills?)

One proposed amendment to Senate Bill 5917 simply sought to add a warning label to the drug’s packaging advising that it “causes fetal death.” But stating the obvious evidently was too much for Democrats, who rejected the measure with a resounding “NO!”

Another amendment would have required the Department of Corrections to notify women of the availability of Abortion Pill Reversal — a treatment that has reportedly saved more than 8,000 lives — if they change their minds.

Democrats shot that down, too.

“You’re not even telling them the risk,” Republican state Sen. Phil Fortunato said in defense of the amendment on Feb. 10. “You are simply informing them that if you change your mind, there is an alternative … and why women can’t know that is beyond me.”

The Republican behind the proposed amendment, Sen. Leonard Christian, voiced his own regret over the choice he and his wife made to abort their first child when they were teenagers.

“Everything in my 16-year-old-boy body was saying, ‘Get her out of there,’” Christian said, recalling how his wife — then his girlfriend — agonized throughout the procedure. “I should have been a man, should have took her out of there, but I didn’t.”

Christian added that his wife still suffers from depression over the events of that day. “How we stayed married, I have no idea.”

Christian’s wife isn’t alone. More than one-third of post-abortive women suffer from depression — a fact the abortion lobby is well aware of but rarely mentions.

So if Democrats care about women’s health and reproductive choice, why are they denying them the opportunity to make fully informed decisions about their pregnancies?

Maybe it’s not freedom of choice they value so much as one specific choice: abortion.

Why?

Childless women are far more likely to vote Democrat.

Building the Base

Women have long been a pillar of the Democratic Party’s base, but a 2024 Pew Research poll gave fresh insight into which women are more likely to vote blue. (RELATED: Feminism, the Nose-Ring Theory, and Our Potential Extinction)

The survey showed that while male voters generally lean conservative, women skew to the left — until they get married and have kids.

The difference is significant: About 72 percent of never-married women prefer Democrats, yet married women favor Republicans 50–45 percent. Likewise, across all age groups, mothers of children under age 18 are more likely to vote Republican than their childless counterparts. (RELATED: Gen Z Women Want a Gaggle of Kids and Sourdough Bread)

This gap is anything but new. Veteran Democrat pollster Stan Greenberg, who advised President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, has long highlighted unmarried women as a key Democratic voting bloc.

When viewed in that context, the Left’s picture of women’s “liberation” — depressed, childless women chained to cubicles — starts to look a lot more like demographic building than deliverance.

The truth is, if Democrats really cared about women, they would stop discouraging us from pursuing marriage and motherhood — things that, as it turns out, actually make us happy. Contrary to what pop culture might suggest, married mothers are nearly twice as likely to be “very happy” with their lives as women who are unmarried and childless, according to a YouGov survey published last August.

Thankfully, many Gen Z women (and men) are bucking the trend of putting off marriage and kids until their 30s, opting instead to settle down and start families in their early 20s.

With the nation’s youth embracing traditional values once more, women may soon get their liberation after all… from the Democratic Party.

READ MORE from Samantha Flom:

Want to Crack Down on Drug Trafficking? Target the Abortion Drug Cartel

The Nation Must Face the Abortion Pill Legal Monster

Eugenics: The Dark Side of IVF

Samantha Flom is the associate editor for Restoration News and author of Pill Pushers: How a Dark Political Agenda Made Abortion More Dangerous Than Ever.