“Facts are important,” according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), “especially when discussing the health of women and the American public.”

Clearly, they are not important to the legislators in Idaho, nor to its Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. And during the last three years, facts have not proven important to the ruling Republicans in Arkansas, Arizona, Utah, and South Dakota, all of whom have elected to force physicians to give false information to their patients seeking a medication abortion.

A medication abortion, also known as a medical abortion, which should have made the lives of women with unintended pregnancies so much simpler, is completed by the administration of two different drugs. The first, mifepristone, blocks the hormone progesterone, which in turn stops the advance of the pregnancy. The second drug, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, makes the uterus contract to complete the abortion.

This safe, effective method has been approved by the FDA since 2000. Almost immediately, forced-birther states started fighting back. In January 2018, the Guttmacher Institute reported that: