Robin Tucker never sees many of the women who she prescribes abortion drugs to.
Some of them she does not even talk to. The Maryland abortionist just reviews their online request forms, takes their money and mails the abortion drugs to the address given.
No counseling the woman about her options beforehand, no follow-up visit afterward and no way to contact Tucker if the woman suffers serious complications after normal work hours.
The details that Tucker shared about her practice with Ms. Magazine this week should raise many red flags about women’s health and safety. However, the magazine portrayed her as an advocate for women’s health and basically gave her abortion work free advertising through the interview.
Tucker’s Metro Area Advanced Practice Healthcare, based in Bethesda, Maryland, is one of a whole host of new abortion businesses popping up online now that the Biden administration has dropped safety regulations on the abortion drug mifepristone.
Mifepristone is used to abort unborn babies up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. It blocks the hormone progesterone and basically starves the baby to death. For decades, the FDA required that abortionists provide the drug in-person after a medical examination because of its high risks. In December, however, the Biden administration got rid of the in-person requirement and began allowing the drug to be sold through the mail.
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Tucker, a nurse practitioner and midwife, told Ms. Magazine that she provides the abortion drugs to women in Virginia, Maryland and Maine after a brief a phone call, video chat or even just a review of their online intake form. The cost is $150, and the shipment takes three to four days, according to the interview.
“It really feels great to be able to help people this way,” she told the magazine. “I have a 17-year-old daughter, and I have a 25-year-old non-binary child. A lot of my patients are their ages. I approach them how I would want my child to be treated in this situation.”
But her description of her practice would raise a lot of concerns in most parents’ minds. For example, she never even talks to some of the people who request abortion drugs from her online.
“I’m getting a lot of patients from Maryland and Virginia, people in rural areas who would have had to take time off work to go to a clinic in person. They come through virtually and schedule an appointment, a phone consult, or just the forms,” Tucker said.
The lack of an in-person check-up itself is dangerous enough, especially for mothers with undetected ectopic pregnancies, but dispensing the drugs without ever even talking to the person provides no safeguards whatsoever against abusive parents, partners and human traffickers who force and coerce women and girls into aborting their unborn babies, or against potential health risks that typically are screened for during a check-up.
It seems that, for many abortion activists, the only real concern is access. Access to abortion is more important that screening for abuse or health risks, more important than babies’ lives or women making a fully informed decision.
Tucker told the magazine: “If somebody lives out in Southwestern Virginia and has five kids and can only afford $20 for her abortion and wants to talk to me on the phone—I’m able to help her more than if I’m in a clinic and she has to find transportation. I feel like I’ve been able to really help people like that.”
Yet, she also admitted that this “help” does not include counseling women about their options, she just assumes that they are sure they want an abortion. Her comments also imply that she probably does not screen for coercion either, even though many women are coerced into aborting their unborn babies against their will.
“I assume that if I’m on the phone with someone, and they want abortion pills, it’s not my role to question and ask if they are sure,” Tucker said. “I feel like that’s disrespectful. I’m not an options counselor. If people have questions about what they should do, then I’ll definitely help them answer them. But I’m not going to initiate a conversation about how sure they are.”
Though Tucker recommends that patients follow up with her after the abortion, few do, according to the interview. She does not offer 24-hour help for women suffering complications either. She encourages women to call her office between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., but after hours, there’s only an answering service – and she admits “it can be a few hours before someone gets back to you just because I’m a one-person shop.”
So women who are bleeding heavily or suffering from severe pain, infections or hemorrhage are left to find help on their own. The FDA has linked the abortion drug to at least 24 women’s deaths and 4,000 serious complications between 2000 and 2018. However, under President Barack Obama, the FDA stopped requiring that non-fatal complications from mifepristone be reported. So the numbers almost certainly are much higher.
New data and studies suggest the risks of the abortion drug are much more common than what abortion activists often claim, with as many as one in 17 requiring hospital treatment.
These new online abortion businesses are not helping women, despite what women’s magazines and politicians claim. They are putting women’s and children’s lives in greater jeopardy by selling abortion drugs that kill unborn babies and put mothers’ lives at risk.
