“Once we get the pills into the U.S., they can distribute them across the whole country.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking this quote came from a fentanyl kingpin rather than Veronica Cruz Sanchez, the founder of an illegal abortion pill ring, speaking to the Washington Post this week.
Two years ago, one of us wrote about the abortion industry’s reckless efforts to dispense drugs via telehealth, which would make it impossible to adequately screen or counsel a patient but would still be prescribed by a doctor credentialed by the state and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Ah, those halcyon days. Thanks to the Biden administration and its media accomplices pushing abortion on demand, we are now confronted with the “spiderweb” of unregulated, unverifiable pills being carried across the Mexican border and sent through the mail without any safeguards.
Dr. Kristyn Brandi, a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the group that led the de-medicalization of abortion drugs when it sued the FDA to force pills by mail in 2020, assures us that DIY abortion is safe “as long as the pills they receive are clearly labeled.”
The article proceeds to show photographs of broken pills sorted and packaged by volunteers with no medical background. When one “distributor” comments to another that she touched a dog with her pill-sorting gloves, a third replies: “We’re not f---ing doctors, we’re not health-care workers. Everyone is taking some risk in this somewhere along the line…”
One woman’s pills arrived in a cat flea medication bottle leading her boyfriend to question whether she should take them, worried that they could be laced with fentanyl. The organizer admits that sometimes distributors give them pills because they are “about to expire” and presumably could not be sold. We suspect this is not the safe, clear labeling Dr. Brandi has in mind.
These networks do not seem to know—or care—who uses their services, or if men are accessing these dangerous drugs to slip them into a woman’s food or drink and unknowingly cause an abortion. Who could forget when a male New York Times reporter celebrated the ease with which he obtained abortion pills online.
Cruz Sanchez assures us that she has never heard of anyone suffering severe medical complications from her pills, even though a recent peer-reviewed study shows that the rate of emergency room visits following a chemical abortion increased by over 500% between 2002 and 2015. Would you call the internet stranger whose drugs put you in the hospital?
The New Yorker tells a different story, in which Anna (a pseudonym) gave abortion pills to an acquaintance whose health was already “precarious.” When the woman became unreachable, Anna panicked and told a friend, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I thought I had killed somebody.” Fortunately, the woman was stabilized after her mother drove her to the emergency room; had she been home alone, the outcome could have been much worse.
The Mayo Clinic, not yet captured by pro-abortion ideology, recognizes the physical risks of chemical abortion, as well as its “emotional and psychological consequences.” It lists screening factors that make a woman ineligible for abortion drugs, including gestational age and ectopic pregnancy, which can only be determined through an in-person medical exam. Mayo Clinic says that “medical abortion isn’t an option if you… can't make follow-up visits to your provider or don't have access to emergency care” [emphasis in original].
No woman receiving drugs in the mail has been screened for medical contraindications, and she probably has not even been told that she should receive screening or follow up care. If she suffers complications, she is left alone to get herself to the emergency room. For women in rural areas, this could be deadly.
It is well-documented that chemical abortions result in four times as many complications as surgical procedures, and outcomes are worse if the abortion is miscoded as a natural miscarriage, which is common as women are increasingly told to “avoid mentioning abortion” in the ER.
Duffel bags of pills carried across the border is not medicine. Chemical abortion is never safe, nor is it anyone’s best option. Women deserve support and compassion, not expired drugs in a Mexican veterinarian’s discarded pill bottle.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of SBA Pro-Life America. Katie Glenn is SBA Pro-Life America’s state policy director.
