How Abortion Drug Sellers Are Violating Federal Rules Designed to Protect Women| National Catholic Register
New report by the Charlotte Lozier Institute finds that most abortion drug sellers do not comply with safety limits that protect women from dangerous side effects.
Most abortion drug sellers are flouting a federal rule that protects women from complications from chemical abortions, according to a recent report.
The May 26 report by Charlotte Lozier Institute, a think tank affiliated with Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, examined the telehealth abortion landscape and investigated whether abortion drug providers follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements.
Titled “An Overview of Online Abortion Drug Access in Post-Dobbs America,” it found numerous alleged violations, including a discovery that eight online abortion distributors violate state pro-life laws by shipping abortion drugs into those states.
The report also found that eight in 10 abortion drug sellers send abortion drugs after 10 weeks of pregnancy, flouting an FDA rule meant to protect women from potential harm.
Within the formal U.S. healthcare system, which involves licensed healthcare professionals, the report found that abortion drug sellers “do not provide the type of oversight typically associated with telemedicine or even telehealth services.”
In addition, abortion sellers outside the formal U.S. healthcare system — such as international online organizations, e-commerce pharmacies, and community networks — have minimal safeguards for women. These organizations ship abortion drugs “produced outside of the FDA’s approved supply chain.” The report maintains that this “could be characterized as the wild west, as almost zero safeguards exist for women.”
The report also found that 28 websites are still selling unapproved and misbranded abortion drugs to women even after the FDA sent abuse letters to them in 2019.
Mia Steupert, research associate at the institute and the reportʼs author, called the findings “egregious.”
“The abortion industry loves to claim ‘abortion is healthcare,’ but their actions and advocacy have shown they don’t want abortion to be treated with the same level of regulatory scrutiny as legitimate medical procedures,” Steupert said.
“No one should be able to obtain abortion drugs as easily as purchasing something off Amazon,” Steupert said, adding that the findings “should serve as a wake-up call to policymakers that a wild west of online abortion drug access only serves to end unborn life at all costs, even at the expense of women’s safety.”
Kristi Hamrick, a spokesperson for Students for Life of America, said the “anonymous distribution of what is sometimes classified as a controlled substance is out of control.”
“Our undercover work, ordering chemical abortion pills online without any verification at all — of whether a woman is pregnant, or late in pregnancy, or experiencing an ectopic pregnancy (which canʼt be ended with the pills) — is medically negligent,” she said.
“Just as horrific, the fact that abusers can get the drugs easily, makes it clear that pill pushers donʼt care what happens to the women exposed to the dangerous dies, as long as they get paid,” Hamrick continued. “Chemical abortion pills expose women to injury, infertility, and death. And thatʼs when they work as advertised.”
Andrea Trudden, a spokeswoman for Heartbeat International, a worldwide network of more than 4,000 pregnancy help organizations, said the report “confirms exactly what many of us warned would happen when abortion pills were deregulated.”
“The FDA needs to reinstate in-person dispensing now to protect women from unnecessary harm,” Trudden said.
“Ironically, the more the abortion industry markets abortion as ‘reproductive healthcare,’ the fewer actual healthcare professionals tend to be involved in the process,” Trudden continued. “Women are increasingly being pushed toward mail-order abortion drugs with little medical oversight, no in-person examination, no ultrasound, and in some cases apparent disregard even for FDA safety limits.”
Trudden also raised concerns about abortion drug poisonings, citing recent arrests for alleged secret druggings. There are numerous documented cases of pregnant women being drugged with abortion pills, ending the lives of children they wanted to keep.
“Concerns about coercion, abuse, and complications were repeatedly dismissed, yet Heartbeat International continues to document disturbing cases involving abortion drug poisonings and women being secretly drugged by boyfriends or family members attempting to end pregnancies without their knowledge or consent,” Trudden said.
Just this week, a Kentucky woman’s boyfriend was arrested for allegedly committing fetal homicide, causing the woman to lose her baby by replacing her medications with an abortifacient.
In another case this week, a Texas man was indicted on charges of an abortion and injury to a child after he allegedly administered a substance to a Texas woman without her knowing, causing the death of the unborn baby and “serious bodily injury” to the woman.
In addition, Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman, is involved in an ongoing lawsuit after she was allegedly coerced into taking mail-order abortion drugs by her boyfriend.
Trudden said, “Women deserve real healthcare and real protections, not an increasingly profit-driven system willing to sacrifice their health and safety for the sake of abortion.”
