Just like pro-life advocates, abortion activists also are preparing for the end of Roe v. Wade and restored protections for unborn babies.
But while pro-lifers are ramping up efforts to support mothers and babies, abortion activists are planning ways to break the law and provide illegal abortions.
“Driven underground during the pandemic, online abortion providers say they’ll keep supplying pills and services even if the Supreme Court approves state bans,” Politico reported this week.
The U.S. Supreme Court stoked hopes and fears this spring when it agreed to hear a major abortion case out of Mississippi. The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, involves the constitutionality of a law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is at risk. At issue is the question of “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortion are unconstitutional.”
The justices are not expected to release their answer until the summer of 2022, but abortion activists already are planning in the event that the court allows states to protect unborn babies by banning abortions.
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According to Politico, a “community of underground abortion activists” already is recruiting new activists and establishing groups to sell abortion drugs through the mail. Some are setting up “internet forums, small internet groups offering assistance in-person and virtually, and mail deliveries from international pharmacies to out-of-the-way mailboxes.”
“There are also ‘abortion doula’ groups, like Mountain Access Brigade, that offer connective services — like rides to clinics or online options … [and] ‘aunties’ — online gatherings of volunteers who group together to support patients seeking abortions, from giving rides to escorting patients into clinics,” the report continues.
Many of the abortion activists spoke anonymously or used pseudonyms, fearing that their work soon may be illegal.
“Even though our work is legal and we’re not doing anything wrong, we operate under the assumption what we do could become illegal at any time,” a member of the pro-abortion Mountain Access Brigade told Politico.
Right now, the group is working on “privacy-supporting technology” – a means to hide their abortion work and the identities of those they are providing abortions to, should killing unborn babies in abortions become illegal again, according to the report.
Much of abortion activists’ focus is on abortion drugs, which can be obtained cheaply and sold through the mail. A number of pro-abortion groups already are sending abortion drugs to women through the mail, and more started up after President Joe Biden’s administration stopped enforcing safety regulations on the abortion drugs.
The report continues:
“If Roe goes down — we hope it won’t — there are always going to be ways to access abortion,” said Elisa Wells, a co-founder of Plan C, an organization that connects users to abortions, including providing information of the quality of medications from online pharmacies. “Plan C included, we’re already working on alternative ways to access the pills.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wells said her group encountered problems when India, a major source for abortion drugs, suspended exports. So, they improvised.
“We figured out providers in the U.S. could write prescriptions to misoprostol,” Wells said.
In the U.S., mifepristone and misoprostol typically are prescribed together to abort unborn babies in the first trimester because either drug on its own is less effective and more dangerous for the mother.
Though abortion activists claim abortion drugs are safe for women, abortion access – not women’s health or safety – appears to be their primary focus. Even while abortions remain legal and widely available, they are lobbying the Biden administration to permanently do away with FDA safety regulations that require abortion drugs to be provided in-person after a check up by a doctor.
“The reason there was an in-person requirement was to make sure you had a qualified doctor” to protect women’s health, said Roger Severino, former director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights during the Trump administration
He told Politico that abortion activists want to make abortion drugs as common as “picking up a vitamin from CVS.”
In the United States, the abortion drug mifepristone has been linked to at least 24 women’s deaths and 4,000 serious complications. Risks include excessive bleeding, severe abdominal pain, infection and hemorrhage.
A 2009 study “Immediate Complications After Medical Compared With Surgical Termination of Pregnancy,” in Obstetrics and Gynecology found a complication rate of approximately 20 percent for the abortion drugs compared to 5.6 percent for surgical abortions. Hemorrhages and incomplete abortions were among the most common complications.
Pro-life advocates also have raised concerns about problems with coercion and abuse that could worsen with the unregulated, increased availability of abortion via mail-order and underground abortion groups. LifeNews has reported many stories of women and girls who were pressured or forced to abort their unborn babies. In one recent case, a Wisconsin man was accused of buying abortion drugs online and slipping them into his pregnant girlfriend’s drink after she refused to have an abortion.
Abortion activists told Politico that they believe women will still seek out abortions even if they become illegal, and they want to help them do it.
But research suggests this also is not true. Secular Pro-Life has compiled a long list of evidence showing that abortion restrictions do prevent abortions and save babies’ lives. For example, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that abortion numbers declined when the state temporarily stopped elective abortions, along with other elective medical procedures, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abortions are not medical care and they are not necessary or essential for women to succeed. When Roe v. Wade is overturned, babies will be spared from abortion, and pro-life advocates will be there to help empower mothers to choose life.
