The Mississippi Legislature has passed a bill that would ban the mailing, shipping or prescribing of abortion drugs to residents, closing a major loophole that exploits the state’s strong protections for unborn children.
House Bill 1613 was amended to treat the distribution of drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol with the intent to cause an abortion as a form of drug trafficking.
The House approved the legislation 77-39, and the Senate later concurred, sending the measure to pro-life Gov. Tate Reeves for his consideration. He’s expected to sign it into law.
Rep. Celeste Hurst, R-Sandhill, who introduced the amendment, emphasized the need to protect women from unregulated and potentially dangerous mail-order abortion drugs.
“There’s no oversight on this drug right now,” Hurst said. “Anyone, male or female, could fill out a form and have that drug shipped to them. A human trafficker could put it in a woman’s hot cocoa.”
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Hurst made clear that the bill targets only the use of these medications for abortion and does not restrict their legitimate medical applications, such as managing miscarriages.
“If a doctor gave that medication for an abortion, they would be doing a criminal act,” Hurst said. “But if they prescribed it for something that is not abortion-inducing, then there’s nothing in that law, or in current law, that would prohibit them from doing that.”
Mississippi has maintained some of the nation’s strongest safeguards for unborn life since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision returned authority to the states. While surgical abortions are banned, chemical abortions via mail-order pills from out-of-state providers have emerged as a way to circumvent the law.
Supporters say the legislation is essential to prevent coercion, abuse and the harm caused by unmonitored abortion drugs, while reinforcing the state’s commitment to protecting both mothers and their unborn children from the abortion industry’s practices.
If signed by Gov. Reeves, the measure would further strengthen Mississippi’s pro-life laws by holding accountable those who seek to traffic dangerous abortion pills into the state.
