Abortion Extremists Are Peddling Illegal Abortion Pills at the Expense of Women's Health

May 21, 2019

As reported earlier this year, the FDA has finally begun to crack down on organizations that are illegally selling abortion pills over the internet by issuing warning letters to dealers such as Aid Access.

Just a few days ago, 117 members of Congress issued a letter to the FDA urging them to “continue to conduct oversight” of entities such as Aid Access and Rablon.

Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Aid Access, responded with a letter of her own to the FDA stating her refusal to stop their profits—I mean, “care”—they are giving to women. She stated, “When U.S. women seeking to terminate their pregnancies prior to 9 weeks consult me, I will not turn them away. I will continue to protect the human and constitutional right of my patients to access safe abortion services.”

Abortion is the ultimate violation of human rights, and U.S. women don’t need this Dutch doctor to profit off our legal invention to a “right” for women to kill a child in the womb.

Dr. Gomperts ships unapproved abortion pill regimens of mifepristone and misoprostol after getting the prescription fulfilled from an Indian pharmacy (of all places), and then sells them for $95; or “she’s willing to offer the drugs for free or at a reduced price if women can’t pay.” The average cost for a chemical abortion of an unborn child up to 9 weeks gestation according to Guttmacher is $535. It’s interesting how these services are not targeted to the rich who would welcome such a discreet and accessible service at any fee. But in keeping with tradition, abortion “services” always target the poor—in the name of “care.”

Gomperts prescribed 2,581 medical abortions in the one year Aid Access has been in operation.

The FDA-approved prescription drug mifepristone is marketed under the brand name Mifeprex® and it carries a black box warning of serious adverse or even life-threatening effects. Whatever regimen Dr. Gomperts is concocting with her friends at the Indian pharmacies is sure to be just as dangerous and life-threatening to women. At the end of the day, we are talking about mixing chemicals to kill a living child in the womb.

In summary, according to the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) of Mifeprex®, in order to prescribe the regime you must be certified, have the “ability to date pregnancies accurately and to diagnose ectopic pregnancies. Healthcare providers must also be able to provide any necessary surgical intervention, or have made arrangements for others to provide for such care.”

As we stated in a previous FRC publication:

Chemical abortions involve severe cramping, contractions, and bleeding to expel the baby. These symptoms can last from several hours to several days, and they can be very intense and painful. Many women also experience nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headache. Maternal deaths have occurred, most frequently due to infection and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. The abortion business makes a chemical abortion sound safe and simple, but this is a multi-day traumatic process that, according to the Mifeprex® medication guide, could take up to 30 days to complete!

The FDA has updated their adverse events reports on Mifeprex® with two more deaths as of December 31, 2018. There were also reports of two cases of ectopic pregnancy resulting in death; and several cases of severe systemic infection (also called sepsis), including some that were fatal. From 2000 to 2018, the total number of adverse events is now 24 deaths, 97 ectopic pregnancies, 1,042 hospitalizations, 599 blood transfusions, and 412 infections (including 69 severe infections), with a total of 4,195 adverse events reported. And these are just the events reported to the FDA.

Gomperts has previously said that FDA restrictions on abortion medications are “based on politics, not science.”

But the FDA does not go far enough in restricting medication abortion when many states themselves are experimenting with telemed abortions that only require talking to a doctor over the internet before ingesting the chemical abortion regimen. Skyping with a doctor and filling out a questionnaire carries the same risk as ordering pills online from a doctor you’ve never met and who cannot physically assess you. Ingesting chemicals that are powerful enough to kill a living child in the womb has serious consequences.

Disturbingly, the physical trauma that happens to a woman’s body as a result is a sign that the “treatment is working.” What’s more, the adverse effects can even be fatal; the risks are eerily similar to what would happen if a woman tried to carry out a self-induced abortion. For years now and still to this day, abortion activists claim that pro-life polices will force women into back alleys and coat hanger abortions; yet at the same time, they push for the abortion pill which is in reality like a “chemical coat-hanger.”

One thing Dr. Gomperts did mention in her letter that is true is that “the landscape of abortion is changing.” As more and more pro-life laws are being enacted in the states, the abortion industry is looking to expand its reach through the abortion pill by attempting to defy and delegitimize the FDA’s REMS so that a “self-managed” abortion—the abortion pill regimen—becomes the new normal for the abortion industry.

This kind of abortion-at-any-cost extremism must be stopped for the sake of women’s health and the lives of the unborn.

Stay tuned for more developments on the rise of the abortion pill in our midst.