For Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), a former Planned Parenthood executive and strong proponent of womens reproductive rights, its infuriating enough that the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade .

So last week, during a committee hearing on a bill about Food and Drug Administration user fees, when Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) casually tried to amend the bill to require women to see a doctor and get an ultrasound before being allowed to use the abortion pill, Smith was livid.

Completely unnecessary, she told him in Tuesdays hearing.

This amendment would force women who are seeking a medication abortion to be diagnosed in person and only after this unnecessary procedure, she said. To be clear, these kinds of [transvaginal] ultrasounds do not have a medical purpose within 10 weeks of pregnancy, which is the time frame for when women are able to access a medication abortion.

Smith tweeted about it after the hearing, too, saying there is zero reason for Marshalls proposal and accusing him of punishing women for seeking a common medical procedure.

That could have been the end of it. After all, Smith was right: Medication abortion, also called the abortion pill, was approved by the FDA in 2000 and is safe, effective and widely prescribed for miscarriage and abortion care within the first 10 weeks. Its also the most common method of abortion in the country, accounting for about 60% of all abortions .

As of December, women dont even have to go to a doctors office to get the two-pill regimen. The FDA waived that rule to let doctors prescribe it through telehealth consultations and mail it to patients in states where its permitted by law. That was just before a March study found that medication abortion can be dispensed without an ultrasound or a physical exam, a study with far-reaching implications given that ultrasound machines cost thousands of dollars and require specialized training.

But Marshall, who likes to tout that hes the Senates only OB-GYN, tweeted back at Smith this time making an outlandish claim about the dangers of the abortion pill.

Women will die if they skip this step, Marshall said, referring to an ultrasound, and babies will be born with birth defects as the drug is less effective at a later gestational age.

Dying women! Babies with birth defects! This is outrageous!

Its also not true.