P.O. BOX 250514 Plano, TX 75025
March 11, 2024
Dear Members of Congress,
Across America, dozens of states have enacted life-saving legislation to protect children from the violence of abortion. Not to be deterred, abortionists pivoted to illegally smuggling the abortion pill – which now kills more than half of all abortion victims in the United States – into every state.
Mail-Order Abortion Pills Are the New, Deadly “Back-Alley” Abortion
Despite federal law prohibiting mailing abortion drugs and state laws protecting children from abortion within their borders, abortion smugglers are brazenly shipping “thousands and thousands of pills,” according to The New York Times in February of this year.
These pills “are being shipped everywhere across the United States from a handful of providers,” according to the report, which goes on to explain that illegal abortion pill trafficking relies on so-called shield laws, “novel laws enacted in a half-dozen states — Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Vermont, New York and California.”
The Times notes these laws “have been in use only since the summer and have not been tested in the courts, but they are already providing abortion access to tens of thousands of women in states with bans.”
These Drugs Kill & Endanger American Lives
Not only does the abortion pill end the lives of children, but chemical abortion is also four times more dangerous to mothers than surgical abortion, and as many as 1 in 8 women who are mailed the abortion pill require emergency medical care.
Nurses at Human Coalition, an organization with a comprehensive care network assisting pregnant women and families, see first-hand the devastating effects the abortion pill has on women.
One client who took the pill and was unknowingly experiencing an ectopic pregnancy – a potentially deadly condition for mom and always for baby told Human Coalition nurses, “I did go to the hospital. I ended up having to get my tube removed, so I had surgery the same day. I would like to say thank you for convincing me to get checked. You literally saved my life, and I am thankful.”
After another Human Coalition client began vomiting and feeling sick after taking the second pill, she called the abortion clinic that prescribed the pill, concerned about her symptoms. They dismissed her, telling her it was “just a stomach bug.” She then sought care at an emergency room where she underwent an emergency surgical procedure. Her doctors told her that if she had waited 24 hours, she would have died from the sepsis that had developed.
Mail-Order Abortion Empowers Human Traffickers and Abusers
Now, anyone can have the high-risk abortion drugs delivered to their front door without seeing a doctor—leaving women and girls more isolated and alone than ever before.
Predictably, abusers and human traffickers take increasing advantage of mail-order abortion, smuggling these deadly drugs. And women and girls are experiencing unprecedented, forced abortions under this landscape.
The news is replete with stories of criminal convictions of men who poisoned their pregnant partners and children with mail-order abortion drugs. A physician spiked his girlfriend’s tea with an abortion pill; a fertility doctor’s son forged a prescription for misoprostol, convinced his girlfriend it was an antibiotic, and duped her into aborting their six-week-old child. A California woman’s ex-boyfriend broke into her home, put a gun to her head, and forced to take the abortion pills as she was 12 weeks pregnant. Men have tried to spike water, drinks, pancakes, and smoothies to induce abortions. There have been plenty of other reports of men using drugs to force abortions in a variety of ways.
We also know human traffickers use forced abortion against their victims. Abortion-by-mail enables this abuse more than ever. Multiple studies note the disturbing prevalence of forced abortion on victims of sex trafficking. One such study indicated that more than half of the women surveyed were forced to have abortions while they were trafficked.
Removing in-person safeguards for abortion pill dispensation removes crucial intervention points for women. It sets vulnerable women even further outside the reach of those who might help them and their unborn child. And it isolates them alone with their abusers who use the callous regime to cover up and perpetuate their abuse.
We refuse to turn a blind eye to the women and children left suffering at the hands of their abusers and hope you will too.
Please End the Criminal & Reckless Abortion by Mail Regime
We urge you to protect these vulnerable women and children by sending a cease-and-desist letter to three online pharmacies illegally shipping abortion drugs as well as their four shield law providers.
The three main online pharmacies are:
- Honeybee Health
- Manifest Rx, and
- American Mail Order Pharmacy
These criminal actors mail or ship abortion drugs across U.S. state lines in violation of federal criminal law (18 U.S.C. 1461, 1462). Our existing federal laws trump any state shield laws purportedly providing immunity to the actors shipping abortion pills. The four organizations primarily acting as shield law providers of mail-order abortions are:
- Aid Access
- Cambridge Reproductive Health Consultants
- Abuzz, and
- Honeybee Health
In fact, The New York Times reports that “Aid Access providers are now using shield laws to [send abortion drugs to] about 7,000 patients a month, nearly 90 percent of them in states with bans or severe restrictions, according to Dr. Abigail Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies Aid Access data.”
These groups are responsible for ushering in a horrific new abortion world for vulnerable women and their children—a world where they are more isolated from care, a world where they have no “choice,” a world where they are abandoned to their abusers. Worst of all, this is accomplished under the guise of reproductive “freedom.”
It is time for Congress to keep their oath to protect Americans, including the women and children being preyed upon by the dangerous and deadly mail-order abortion industry.
We call on Congress to send cease-and-desist letters to these online abortion pharmacies and their shield law providers who violate federal law.
Sincerely ,
Jeff Bradford President Human Coalition Action
Chelsey Youman National Public Policy Director Human Coalition Action
Kristan Hawkins President Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action
Frank Pavone National Director Priests for Life Kristen Ullman President Eagle Forum
Mary Szoch Director of the Center for Human Dignity Family Research Council
Lila Rose Founder and President Live Action
Brian Burch President Catholic Vote
