(Daily Citizen) The mail-order abortion business is booming under “telemedicine shield laws”— state policies that protect doctors who prescribe and send chemical abortion kits to states where abortion is illegal.
The New York Times calls it the new “war between the states” on abortion.
Volunteers for the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Project (MAP), an oft–publicized mail-order abortion service, told The Wall Street Journal they’re simply providing “critical healthcare” to women in states that don’t offer it.
But pro-life advocates like John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, say organizations like MAP are committing a crime.
“You have states not just picking their own strategy but trying to completely sabotage the governing efforts of their neighboring states,” the Times quotes Seago. “It can’t stand.”
Pro-life states want to challenge shield laws in court, but acknowledge it’s a tricky proposition. In the meantime, organizations like MAP are pumping pills into pro-life states by the thousands.
It’s women who are paying the price.
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Mail-order abortions
Mail-order abortions refer to chemical abortion kits sent through the mail. These kits contain two chemicals that induce a miscarriage.
Mifepristone, the abortion pill, causes babies to pass away by blocking progesterone, a hormone they need to survive and grow. Misoprostol then forces the uterus to contract and expel what abortion advocates call “pregnancy tissue”— a sanitized term for the developing baby.
When the FDA rubberstamped mifepristone for abortions in 2000, it required doctors dispense it in person. The FDA relaxed these restrictions during COVID, allowing doctors to prescribe mifepristone online and send it through the mail.
The regulatory agency made this temporary policy permanent in December 2021.
The proliferation of mail-order abortions inspired pro-life doctors, led by the Alliance Defending Freedom, to sue the FDA in April 2023, alleging it shouldn’t have approved the dangerous drug in the first place.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals originally ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in August 2023, reversing the FDA’s approval of mail-order abortions. On appeal, however, the Supreme Court overturned the Fifth Circuit’s decision, finding the pro-lifers didn’t have standing.
Shield laws
Only eight states — Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Washington and Illinois — have telemedicine abortion shield laws, the specific kind of policy allowing organizations like MAP to send chemical abortion kits to all pro-life states.
These laws not only promise that state officials won’t investigate shield-law providers — doctors that prescribe abortion pills online — but that they also won’t cooperate with investigations launched by other states.
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David Cohen, a Drexel University law professor who helped design abortion shield laws, says they are designed to prevent pro-life states from extraditing telemedicine abortion doctors.
“The facts that no [shield-law state is] going to extradite any of these providers makes it practically impossible to prosecute them,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle. “That’s the whole point of a shield law.”
The numbers
Unfortunately, these legal shields have allowed shield-law providers to export thousands of chemical abortion kits, primarily to pro-life states.
According to WeCount, a data-gathering effort sponsored by the pro-abortion Society of Family Planning, shield-law groups like MAP sent an estimated 49,800 chemical abortion kits to states that ban abortions at six-weeks gestation or less between July 2023 and March 2024.
In 2024, shield-law groups reportedly provided an average of 6,700 chemical abortions per month in these same states. Assuming this number is correct, more than 53,000 chemical abortion kits will have been sent to pro-life states by the end of August.
The risks
Of course, there’s little-to-no data on the health complications caused by these abortion pills, which are usually administerd with no doctor present.
What we do know is that chemical abortions are physically and mentally traumatic for women who go through them — particularly as their baby gets older.
“Most people don’t expect what really occurs in a chemical abortion,” Dr. Bill Lyle, an OBGYN, tells Focus on the Family. “It’s not, ‘Just take a couple of pills and the baby will absorb into your body.’ [They] still [have] to be passed.”
Lile stresses that eight to 10-week-old, pre-born babies, which the FDA claims can be aborted with mifepristone, are very recognizably alive and human:
MAP prescribes abortion pills to women up to 12-weeks pregnant and as young as 16-years-old.
Chemical abortions can cause infection, hemorrhagic bleeding and incomplete abortions. These complications become more likely as a baby gets older, and more dangerous because woman usually undergo chemical abortions at home.
The symptoms of a chemical abortion can also disguise an ectopic pregnancy — a pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus. Untreated ectopic pregnancies cause internal bleeding and can be fatal.
Doctors detect ectopic pregnancies with ultrasounds. While MAP doctors reserve the right to request a woman get an ultrasound, they do not require one before mailing her abortion pills.
A secular case study of 98 women who obtained chemical abortions found many women felt unprepared for the consequences of a chemical abortion:
The article further suggests that these real experiences are “muted” in the wider abortion debate.
Legal landscape
Policy makers in pro-life states don’t believe shield-laws that enable doctors in one state to break the law in another state are legal.
Will Scharf, a former policy maker and candidate for Missouri Attorney General told the Times, “Ultimately, whenever you get attempts like this to circumvent our constitution system of federalism, that’s going to be something that’s litigated.”
But Sheago says a lawsuit would require someone who had received the abortion kit to cooperate with the case.
So far, pro-life litigators haven’t had any luck.
Why it matters
Abortion activists bombard women, particularly young women, with the message that the abortion pill is fast, easy and safe. Planned Parenthood even claims chemical abortions are safer than taking Tylenol.
These are lies — and women are suffering for them.
States with laws protecting women and babies from chemical abortions should not have to worry about doctors in other states undermining their sovereignty and their citizens’ right to life and protection.
To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).
Some women, after taking the first abortion pill (mifepristone) come to regret their decision. Thankfully, there is a way to reverse the pill’s effects if prompt action is taken. To learn more about the abortion pill reversal protocol, visit abortionpillreversal.com or call 1-877-558-0333 to be connected with a medical professional who can guide callers through the process of reversing the pill’s effects.
To learn more about pro-life legislation in your state, contact your state Family Policy Council.
Editor's note: This article was published by the Daily Citizen and is reprinted with permission. Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is the subject of two lawsuits brought by state AGs concerning sharing information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
