Trey Dellinger
- The availability of mail-order abortion pills undermines the laws of pro-life states and endangers the mother’s health.
Abortion takes the life of an innocent unborn child. That’s true whether it’s performed through an in-clinic medical procedure or by taking a pill. Chemical abortion using mail-order pills also risks the health of the pregnant woman. An in-depth study of insurance claim data by the Ethics and Public Policy Center showed that 1 in 10 women taking these pills will experience serious medical complications, such as sepsis, infection, or hemorrhaging.
When the FDA initially approved mifepristone, it recognized these risks and only allowed these drugs to be prescribed through an in-person doctor visit. In 2023, the Biden Administration bowed to political pressure in the wake of the Dobbs decision and removed that requirement, allowing pharmacies to dispense the pills by mail or in stores.
The availability of mail-order abortion pills undermines the laws of pro-life states and endangers the mother’s health. This led to federal litigation by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and to the passage of new Mississippi legislation, HB1613, introduced by Rep. Celeste Hurst (R-Madison).
On the litigation side, Attorney General Murrill sued to restore the in-person visit requirement and won in lower courts, but the ruling is paused while the United States Supreme Court considers the case. For now, the drugs remain available without an in-person visit.
On the legislative side, Rep. Hurst introduced amendment language to HB 1613 to ban prescribing or trafficking these chemical abortion pills. Both chambers overwhelmingly passed Rep. Hurst’s amendment, which was recently signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves.
Sadly, a recent article from a progressive media outlet created the false impression that HB 1613 prevents women from taking these drugs for a legitimate health reason, such as treating a miscarriage, rather than to induce an abortion. The article even claimed the law may prevent women from starting families.
Those claims are patently false. This new law only bans drugs that are “prescribed or dispensed with the intent of terminating the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman to cause the death of the unborn child[.]” The law clearly states that it does not apply to dual-use drugs “that may be known to cause an abortion but are prescribed for other medical indications, such as chemotherapeutic agents and diagnostic drugs, or are used in the course of medical care that is lawful under the laws of the State of Mississippi and within the physician’s reasonable medical judgment and the applicable standard of care, including, but not limited to, the treatment of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, fetal demise, induction of labor, and management of postpartum complications.”
It’s right there in black and white. HB 1613 does not prevent any drug from being used to treat a miscarriage. It does not criminalize any drug legitimately used to treat a miscarriage. It does not ban any medical care to preserve a woman’s fertility. Period. Full stop.
I am pro-life because I believe science and medicine clearly demonstrate that babies in the womb are human persons deserving of full protection under the law. Chemical abortion ends the lives of these innocent babies. And as Attorney General Liz Murrill proved in her federal litigation, when prescribed without an in-person doctor visit, chemical abortion drugs also endanger the health of the mother.
We should all applaud leaders like Attorney General Murrill and Mississippi Representative Hurst, who are stepping up to protect both the lives of unborn babies and women’s health.
Trey Dellinger
