‘Black Market’ Abortion Pills From Mexico Streaming Into US| National Catholic Register

Abortion pills from Mexico and India are easily available in states where abortion is illegal or heavily regulated, a new report from a pro-life group says. 

The report, issued by American Life League, says anyone in the United States can order abortion pills online with no medical supervision, and that federal agencies have shown no interest in stopping the practice. 

“The main thing that we found is that there’s – for lack of a better term – a drug cartel that is targeting these 28 states where abortion has been banned or restricted,” said Katie Brown, national director of American Life League, which is headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in a telephone interview with the Register. 

As evidence, the eight-page report quotes and provides links to a website that provides abortion pills, from a group called Las Libres, which describes itself as “a Mexico-based organization that promotes women’s human rights and universal access to abortion.” The Las Libres website provides a way to order chemical abortion pills online and also provides advice, including a recommendation that a woman who goes to a hospital or doctor after taking chemical abortion pills not tell medical staff members what she did. 

Instead, the Las Libres website says: 

“Tell all intake and medical staff that you think you’re having a miscarriage.  Do not reveal that you took abortion medications — there is absolutely no way for them to know.  The pills will not show up in blood tests or scans. ER staff can provide the appropriate post-miscarriage medical care without knowing that you took pills. This also applies to interactions or consultation with your doctor or gynecologist: there is no need to tell them that your miscarriage was self-induced.” 

Though the abortion pills website asks for donations, it offers the abortion pills free of charge, including shipping. 

Brown said it’s not clear to her where the pills are made, who makes them, and who pays the costs. 

“Who the heck is funding this? There’s obviously some sort of business exchange. So there’s some sort of backer. We were not able to figure out who that was,” Brown told the Register. 

A spokesman for Las Libres could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday. 

Brown said it’s not clear how many abortion pill shipments are coming across the border, but she said online reports from women say they sometimes arrive in a plastic baggy or plastic wrap. 

A story published by The Washington Post in October 2022 about what the newspaper called a “covert, international network” of abortion pill suppliers describes pills arriving by mail at one woman’s house “inside a cat flea medication box,” although inside the box the pills were sealed and labeled. 

According to the story, the woman after taking the pills expelled a dead 13-week-old fetus with a head, hands, legs, fingers, and toes. Later that day, she and her boyfriend buried the body near a tree in a forest in their favorite park, while she said, “I hope in the future, when I am ready, your soul will find me again. It just wasn’t our time.” 

Men and Abortion Pills 

Chemical abortions usually consist of a two-step process: A mifepristone pill stops the woman’s body from producing progesterone, a naturally occurring hormone that is needed for a pregnancy to continue and for an unborn baby to live; followed by a misoprostol pill, which causes the woman’s body to expel the baby’s remains. 

While the woman described in the Washington Post story took the abortion pills willingly, the American Life League report also describes situations where women took pills unknowingly. The report says it’s easy for men to get abortion-inducing drugs. 

“If a guy pretends to be a woman and goes online and says, ‘This is when my last period was,’ it’s not like they’re going to go to the extra level to verify that it’s a woman and she’s pregnant. They’re just going to send the package and be on their way,” Brown said. 

The report notes several cases in which a man has been charged with getting his wife or girlfriend to take an abortion-inducing drug without her knowledge or consent. 

In one case, in Texas, a man in February 2024 pleaded guilty after his pregnant wife caught him on surveillance video crushing misoprostol, which can send a pregnant woman into premature labor, and putting it in her drink. In Massachusetts, a man in May 2024 was charged with spiking his pregnant girlfriend’s drinks with misoprostol, telling her it was iron or vitamins. In Florida, a woman in June 2023 was charged with trying to bribe her ex-boyfriend into slipping his pregnant girlfriend abortion-inducing drugs without her knowledge. 

It’s not clear from news reports about these instances how the men got ahold of abortion pills. 

But abortion pills are easier to get than they used to be. In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that mifepristone could be sent by mail, on a permanent basis. The agency had previously suspended the previous requirement to pick up abortion pills in person during the coronavirus shutdowns. 

Emily Davis, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said the easy availability of abortion pills poses a risk for pregnant women. 

“Abortion drug poisoning is a new form of domestic violence,” Davis said by email through a spokesman. “Whether obtained online or smuggled across the border, a faceless, doctor-less process to obtain abortion drugs enables abusers to poison or coerce women and girls.” 

FDA Recommendations 

The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly said that abortion pills are physically safe for a woman who takes them as long as she does so within the guidelines the agency sets forth, including that the pills be taken within 10 weeks of gestation, among other things. 

But the agency “does not recommend” buying mifepristone “online or personally transporting it from a foreign country,” the agency said in a written statement in March 2023. 

“If a person does so, they would be bypassing important safeguards specifically designed to protect their health,” the agency said. 

The agency added: “Prescription medicines that are approved for use in the United States have been reviewed for safety, effectiveness, and quality by the FDA, and are subject to FDA-regulated manufacturing controls, including inspection of manufacturing facilities. Generally, prescription medicines purchased from foreign sources are not the FDA-approved versions. The FDA does not have regulatory oversight of prescription medicines from outside the legitimate U.S. drug supply chain; therefore, the FDA cannot ensure the safety, effectiveness, or quality of those medications.” 

Davis, of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, noted that FDA statistics show that about 4% of the women who take abortion pills end up in a hospital emergency room because of heavy bleeding or other problems. 

“These drugs not only end the lives of millions of unborn children, but they also pose a risk to the mother who takes them,” Davis said. 

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America recently published a television and digital video ad in Georgia seeking to debunk claims by abortion supporters that the state’s law prohibiting abortions after six weeks led to the deaths of two pregnant women who took abortion pills. Abortion supporters say the law kept the women from getting operations that could have saved their lives. But pro-lifers point out that Georgia’s law allows abortions in order to save the life of a mother. 

‘Neglected to Investigate’ 

The American Life League report criticizes the U.S. Postal Service and the Food and Drug Administration for the ease with which abortion pills are available in the United States from other countries, saying that the federal agencies “have neglected to investigate these individual networks that provide abortion pills illegally and consistently through the mailing system.” 

The Register contacted a spokesman for the federal Food and Drug Administration on Friday, but did not hear back by publication of this story. 

At the time the Food and Drug Administration first allowed mailing abortion pills, abortion was legal in all 50 states. But in June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the previously enforced federal right to an abortion and sending abortion law back to the states. 

Pro-lifers have argued that the FDA ruling allowing abortion pills to be sent by mail violates the federal Comstock Act of 1873, which makes it illegal to mail “[e]very article, instrument, drug, medicine, or thing … for producing abortion …” The prohibition in current federal law also applies to “any express company or other common carrier.” 

After Roe v. Wade fell, the U.S. Postal Service asked the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, both of which are under the Biden administration, for an opinion on whether mailing abortion pills is legal. 

In December 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion arguing that mailing abortion pills does not violate the Comstock Act “where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.” 

 A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service told the Register on Monday that the agency relies on that opinion to conclude that mailing abortion pills is legal. 

The spokesman also said the postal service takes “no position on abortion policy at either the federal or state level,” but seeks only to uphold its obligation “to deliver letters and packages that are mailable under federal law.” 

Moreover, the spokesman said, the postal service isn’t always aware of what it’s delivering. 

“Many packages that may contain prescription drugs are sealed against inspection under federal law and therefore the Postal Service lacks knowledge of the specific contents of such packages,” the spokesman said by email. “Even if the Postal Service may be aware that a particular package contains mifepristone and misoprostol, the Postal Service lacks a sufficient basis to conclude that any particular package is unmailable under the Comstock Act based upon where it will be mailed and delivered for the reasons articulated in the OLC opinion. We will therefore continue to deliver such packages in accordance with our statutory universal service mission and Postal Service regulations …” 

Brown, asked what changes she’d like to see, said enforcement of laws banning or restricting abortion should be improved, to include stopping abortion pills from being sent there. 

“The first thing that we would like is that these groups that are acting illegally would be banned from these states. That’s step one,” Brown said. 

But a change in the culture is also urgent, she said. 

“I feel like the answer is that we need reform in this country in how we view motherhood and how we view an unexpected pregnancy,” Brown said. “I think the real issue is why motherhood is seen as such a crisis, and reforming it, so it’s seen as something that’s celebrated and not feared.”