Nurses Can’t Administer Abortion Drug, Anti-Choice Group Charges
Planned Parenthood officials said Tuesday they have done nothing illegal or improper, and expect the complaint to be dismissed.
The medication abortion drug mifepristone is at the center of a formal complaint over whether a New Mexico Planned Parenthood employee is unlawfully administering the legal medication.
At issue is whether nurse practitioners may prescribe the medication, which is part of a two-pill regimen commonly taken to end first-trimester pregnancies, and one that is lawfully available in New Mexico.
In a recent complaint filed with the New Mexico Board of Nursing, the anti-choice group Protest ABQ claims a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner is illegally prescribing mifepristone. Protest ABQ, which has long targeted Planned Parenthood and other abortion care providers, contends that only licensed physicians may perform abortions under state law.
Planned Parenthood officials, however, say that nurse practitioners may prescribe the pill under a series of decisions. They point to a 2005 opinion from the State Board of Nursing, which held that the New Mexico Nurse Practice Act does not prohibit a properly trained and certified nurse practitioner from prescribing mifepristone.
Following a 2007 lawsuit by Planned Parenthood, a New Mexico state court found that state law does not prohibit a properly trained and certified nurse practitioner from prescribing the drug.
Representatives from the New Mexico Board of Nursing told the Albuquerque Journal that they received the complaint and have referred it to the board’s investigators.
Tara Shaver, co-founder of Protest ABQ, filed the complaint based on state Medicaid billing records obtained from New Mexico’s Human Services Department. The records showed that a certified nurse practitioner employed by Planned Parenthood was reimbursed about $42,000 from 2013 to 2015, primarily for medication-abortion drugs, according to reports in the Albuquerque Journal.
Angelo Artuso, the attorney for Protest ABQ, told the Albuquerque Journal that the 2007 court ruling sets no precedent for nurse practitioners to prescribe the medication.
Planned Parenthood officials said Tuesday they have done nothing illegal or improper, and expect the complaint to be dismissed.