Despite a warning from the FDA about endangering women’s lives, a European abortion group says it will continue to mail abortion drugs to women in the U.S. illegally.
Rebecca Gomperts, an abortion activist based in the Netherlands, told Mother Jones that she will “not be deterred.” She said her group, Aid Access, is needed now more than ever as states pass laws to restrict or ban abortions.
“When women in the U.S. seeking to terminate their pregnancies prior to 9 weeks consult me, I will not turn them away,” she wrote recently on her website. “I will continue to protect the human and constitutional rights of my patients to access safe abortion services.”
Her abortion group provides dangerous abortion drugs to women in America over the internet, without ever seeing a doctor. Abusive partners or parents could easily obtain the drugs from her as well, and then force women to abort their unborn babies without their knowledge.
In March, the Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to Gomperts, saying she was putting women at “significant health risks” and demanding that she stop.
Last week, however, her lawyer, Richard Hearn, told the FDA that Gomperts will not, according to Mother Jones. Hearn argued that the FDA’s demands violate “the constitutional rights of Dr. Gomperts’ patients in the U.S.” to have abortions.
“The advent of these medicines, and the web, make these state restrictions like prohibition alcohol,” he told Mother Jones. “They are going to be unenforceable. The harder states clamp down on rights, the more they will turn to Rebecca and others.”
Gomperts told the liberal news outlet that the FDA warning is just a “bullying strategy.”
“I’ve been doing this for 16 years. This is the first time we’ve ever gotten a letter like this,” she said.
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But her claim is misleading at best. Her other groups, Women on Web and Women on Waves, have had run-ins with the law numerous times in other countries while trying to do abortions there. In 2012, Moroccan authorities blocked her abortion boat from entering its port to provide illegal abortions. Then, in 2018, Northern Ireland police seized a drone that her group was using to deliver the dangerous abortion drugs there.
All across the world, authorities have raised concerns about Gomperts’ work because of the risks to women’s lives and, in pro-life countries, unborn babies’.
In its letter to Gomperts, the FDA noted that approved abortion drugs in the U.S. are dangerous even when provided legally, writing, “… the drug carries a risk of serious or even life-threatening adverse effects, including serious and sometimes fatal infections and prolonged heavy bleeding …”
At least 28 women in the U.S. have died from taking the abortion drugs, and more than 4,000 have suffered serious complications, the FDA reports. Risks of mifepristone and misoprostol, the most common abortion drugs taken together to abort and then expel an unborn baby from the womb, include excessive bleeding, severe abdominal pain, infection, hemorrhage and death.
But abortion activists like Gomperts and the liberal websites that support her fail to mention the serious risks, especially when taken without seeing a doctor.
Her website emphasizes that the abortion drugs are very safe, but it also tells women it is “absolutely necessary” to live within an hour of a hospital “in case you lose too much blood” – an indication that the drugs are not as safe as Gomperts claims.
The website also points to studies showing that one in 10 women who take the abortion drugs will have an incomplete abortion – which can lead to infection or other life-threatening complications.
Just as alarming, the website repeatedly encourages women to lie if they start experiencing complications. “Say you think you have had a miscarriage,” it tells women, claiming doctors may not be able to tell the difference.
Pro-life advocates also have expressed strong concerns that mail-order abortion services could be misused by abusers who want to force women to abort their unborn babies. Earlier this year, Mother Jones reported on one such case. Federal authorities caught a New York City woman selling abortion drugs online after a Wisconsin man allegedly bought drugs from her and then secretly slipped them into a pregnant woman’s drink.
The abortion drugs are believed to be responsible for the deaths of dozens of women world-wide and millions of unborn babies.
