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Comment by galangalalgol | Hacker News Reader

So by that reasoning if the FDA made abortion pills OTC and anyone could order and use them, no one would be helping them take it, so it wouldn't be about assistance anymore. Yes they could use a coat hanger or chew up a bunch of juniper bark/berries, but that has a lot of risks.

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Almost, but not quite. Making the pill itself is still a form of assistance.

The nearer analogy would be if someone published a recipe and instructions for making the pill.

I think that would still be "assistance," but much more likely to be covered under free speech laws, that disseminating information about something (publishing instructions) is generally already protected.

Even then, though, were such publication to be banned, it would still be the case that nobody is being "forced to remain pregnant."

You're right that that is assistance, but how is literally forcing someone/some corporation from assisting someone not forcing the end result of them remaining pregnant? The idea of the 'natural course of events' is doing a metric ton of heavy lifting here for your argument, where does something begin or end being the 'natural' course of events? You can argue that 'natural' includes all the biological processes of living/dying, becoming pregnant/giving birth, but why doesn't it include the other biological processes of other human beings deciding to exert effort to provide assistance that are opposing the other biological process?

I addressed this in response to your other comment above. I'd give the same answer here.

One set of pills for type 2 diabetes induced by cushings syndrome. Make it OTC. Second set of pills for gastric ulcers induced by NSAIDS. Make it OTC.

Those are both primary uses for those drugs so manufacturing and delivery isn't knowing assistance.

Then you suggest it is legal free speech for me to divulge that if you take one, wait 48hrs and take the second, it is precisely what would occur if you requested a drug induced abortion in a place that allows those?

I think publishing this information would stand a strong chance of being protected under the free speech clause, even in a jurisdiction that otherwise applied penalties to anyone who would help someone procure an abortion, yes, and a much stronger chance than a doctor writing a prescription for these medications and trying to argue the prescription was "speech."

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