Vast Majority of Abortion Facilities Illegally Dispense Abortion Pill

Nearly two-thirds of abortion facilities break federal law by distributing the abortion pill after its legal cut-off date, increasing the chances mothers will experience harmful — and potentially deadly — side effects, according to a new report.

Chemical abortions, consisting of the two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol, accounted for 57.6% of all abortions in 2022. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) originally approved mifepristone only for the first seven weeks of pregnancy, although the Obama administration unilaterally extended this to 10 weeks in 2016. But nearly two-thirds of facilities distribute abortion pills after the FDA’s 10-week limit, says an annual survey of American abortion facilities.

“Sixty-four percent of abortion clinics have gestational cut-off limits set between 11 and 13 weeks for abortion pills. This range indicates a significant majority of clinics provide abortion pills to women beyond the FDA’s limit of 10 weeks,” says the report, produced by Operation Rescue. “Twenty-six percent administer or mail pills from 7 to 10 weeks, and the remaining 10% that limit the pills to 6 weeks or less are located in states with heartbeat protection laws in place. … The latest gestational age at which pills are administered at clinics nationwide is 13 weeks — three weeks beyond the FDA approved limit.”

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Aside from abortion facilities that see patients in-person, 17% of virtual suppliers continue dispensing the drug for 11 to 13 weeks of pregnancy.

Complications of the abortion pill, and doctors’ refusal to administer legally sanctioned miscarriage care, claimed the lives of at least two mothers in Georgia: 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman and 41-year-old Candi Miller. “We know women are dying from these dangerous abortion pills, especially when taken with little or no medical oversight,” says Operation Rescue, which maintains an archive of abortion-related maternal deaths. “If the pro-life movement stands united in holding drug companies and abortion pill suppliers accountable for these egregious deaths, we have the opportunity to win back some ground — which will save preborn lives as well as the lives of their mothers.”

A 16-year-old black girl underwent a chemical abortion at New York City’s Choices Women’s Medical Center in 2018, which left her “sick, sore, lame and disabled.” Her child survived the abortion and was born with “severe brain injuries” and other “profound birth defects,” according to legal filings.

Between 2000 and 2021, the FDA documented 4,207 adverse events from mifepristone use — including 26 deaths, 1,045 hospitalizations, 603 events requiring a blood transfusion, and 413 infections. This number is artificially low since, in 2016, the Obama administration stopped recording all adverse effects short of death.

Women are more likely to have adverse effects from the abortion pill than from surgical abortion, and the risk of harm to the mother increases as the pregnancy continues. The pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) notes, “Medication abortion failure (defined as the need for uterine aspiration because of ongoing pregnancy or retained tissue) increases with advancing gestational age through 70 days of gestation.”

The abortion industry sued all the way to the Supreme Court to prevent pro-life advocates from overturning the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, prevailing in this summer’s Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA ). Operation Rescue, which filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit, says the industry ignores the statute it sued to protect with impunity.

“Abortionists continue to exist as a privileged class of ‘physicians’ who cannot be touched. Their barbaric work of child-killing is too sacred to ever be lessened by disciplinary actions, meanwhile preborn children and their mothers pay the cost. States that have enacted these shield laws are only ensuring more women in more states will be exploited, injured, and possibly even killed by greedy pill peddlers who are now considered above the law,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who noted he had documented the death, permanent disabling, and sexual exploitation of mothers by abortionists.

Increasingly, the abortion industry steers mothers into carrying out a self-managed chemical abortion, which often takes place on the toilet.

The report also states that more than one in four (28%) — or 189 of 674 abortion facilities — distribute the abortion pill without an in-person visit or ultrasound, four more facilities over last year. An in-person visit can confirm gestational age and check for other complications, such as ectopic pregnancy, which could prove fatal to the mother.

“Concerning abortion pills, it is deeply concerning to consider the appalling lack of oversight and accountability and the disturbing consequences we are already witnessing,” said Newman. “How many life-altering injuries and unnecessary deaths will be needed to establish standing for a lawsuit that ultimately addresses the dangerously under-regulated drugs?”

The lack of care and financial motive are written into the industry’s charge for the procedure: If you want safety, according to the report, the industry makes you pay more. “In 2023, the average cost for a virtual abortion was $237. In 2024, that average cost rose to $402, a 70% increase,” it says. But the cost fluctuates based on whether the facility is a “hybrid facility” (seeing patients in person and dispensing the abortion pill online) or a fully virtual facility (operating only online). “The average cost of virtual abortions at these hybrid clinics is $487. However, when we tease out the telemed component, we see that the average cost for pills with a required telemed visit goes up to $512; when no telemed visit is required the average cost drops to $200. The same is true of fully virtual suppliers. When a telemed visit is required, the average cost of a virtual abortion is $488. When no telemed visit is required, that cost drops to $179.”

“[T]his cost difference actually creates an alarming message for women: Unless you’re willing to pay more than twice the price, you’re on your own,” said the report.

Only 10% of brick-and-mortar “hybrid” abortion offices distribute abortion pills without a telemed visit, while 43% of fully hybrid offices do so. Operation Rescue chalks this up to the abortion industry trying to cover the rising costs of operating an in-person office.

“[T]he number of virtual pill suppliers Operation Rescue annually surveys nearly tripled since last year, increasing from 20 virtual suppliers to a new total of 58. That’s a staggering 190% increase in dangerous, back-alley abortion pills by mail,” says the report, which does not include online-only mail order pill businesses.

The abortion pill trade has increased, “since the abortion industry always follows the greediest path,” said Newman.

LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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