Pro-abortion states are passing laws stripping prescriber names off chemical abortion pill labels.
The laws further insulate doctors who prescribe chemical abortion pills to people in pro-life states from investigation and prosecution.
Prescription Label Laws
New York, Maine, Vermont, Washington and Colorado have passed laws allowing prescribers to remove their names from prescriptions for mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used in a chemical abortion.
The laws make it nearly impossible for pro-life states to identify out-of-state, online abortionists—let alone investigate or sue them.
It’s unclear whether this kind of legislation is even legal; federal law requires prescriber names appear on all drug labels. But, so far, the laws remain unchallenged — and deeply problematic for pro-life states.
Importantly, prescription label laws making abortionists anonymous cover both local doctors prescribing abortions and doctors from other states that fill orders through local pharmacies. That means a mail-order abortionist in California could strip his name from a chemical abortion prescription if he filled the script at a pharmacy in New York.
California hopes to capitalize on this loophole by passing AB 260 — a bill that would remove both prescriber and patient names from chemical abortion pill labels. Most pharmacies that dispense mifepristone are in California, according to the left-leaning news outlet 19th Street
AB 260 is awaiting committee action in the California Senate. It passed the Assembly in May.
Shield Laws
Prescription label laws anonymizing abortionists beef up pro-abortion “shield laws” against pro-life judicial challenges.
States with abortion “shield laws” promise not to investigate out-of-state abortion providers or cooperate with investigations and prosecutions from pro-life states.
Eight states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have shield laws explicitly protecting doctors who prescribe chemical abortions to patients in other states.
Fifteen others offer at least some protection from pro-life states’ investigations.
Of the 95,710 abortions prescribed or performed nationwide in December, an estimated one-in-seven were prescribed to women in pro-life states by abortionists in shield law states, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of data collected by the Society of Family Planning.
Pro-Life Challenges to Shield Laws
Pro-life states are workshopping ways to circumvent shield laws in court.
Louisiana and Texas pursued state judgements against Maggie Carpenter, a New York mail order abortionist, earlier this year— but they proved impossible to enforce without New York’s cooperation.
Now, pro-life states are empowering individual citizens to sue out-of-state abortionists for wrongdoing.
In July, Texas father Jerry Rodriguez sued California abortionist Remy Coeytaux in federal court for the wrongful death of Rodriguez’ pre-born children. A federal judgement in favor of Rodriguez would effectively strip Coetytaux of California’s shield law protections.
A Louisiana law allowing citizens to sue out-of-state abortionists, and extending the statute of limitations on abortion lawsuits to five years, took effect earlier this month.
Prescription laws anonymizing abortionists make it harder to file lawsuits like these by hiding the offenders’ identity.
Why It Matters
Chemical abortions are extremely dangerous. Nearly 11% of the more than 865,000 women who filed insurance claims for chemical abortions between 2017 and 2023 experienced severe adverse medical events within 45 days of taking mifepristone, according to data analysis by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, including:
- Sepsis
- Infection
- Blood loss requiring a transfusion
- Hemorrhage
- Related hospitalization
- Related ER visit
- Related life-threatening cardiac, pulmonary and allergic reactions
- Repeated surgical abortion
- Other severe or life-threatening abortion-specific complications
Out-of-state, online abortion providers compound these dangers by prescribing abortion pills to:
- Women more than 10-weeks pregnant, which is the FDA’s gestational limit for chemical abortions.
- Teenage girls, often without parents’ consent, and even though mifepristone has never undergone pediatric testing.
- Women who have not had an ultrasound, which doctors use to detect dangerous ectopic pregnancies mifepristone can disguise.
- Women who will take the pills without a doctors’ supervision, which greatly increases the rate of complications.
- People on behalf of women, which can indicate a woman is being coerced or tricked into getting an abortion.
Pro-abortion states should not be allowed to absolve abortionists of responsibility for the harms their actions cause vulnerable women.
To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).
If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, visit My Choice Network.
Some women, after taking the first abortion pill (mifepristone) come to regret their decision. Thankfully, there is a way to reverse the pill’s effects if prompt action is taken. To learn more about the abortion pill reversal protocol, visit abortionpillreversal.com or call 1-877-558-0333 to be connected with a medical professional who can guide callers through the process of reversing the pill’s effects.
To learn more about pro-life legislation in your state, contact your state Family Policy Council.
To learn more about the consequences of a chemical abortion, visit the links below.
Additional Articles and Resources
Texas Father Sues Out-of-State Abortionist for Killing His Preborn Children
Shield Laws Enable Chemical Abortion in Pro-Life States
Shield Law Abortion Providers Advertised Alongside Black Market Abortion Pills
Texas Sues New York Doctor for Prescribing Abortion Meds
New Abortion Pill Study Confirms Danger to Mothers
Woman Nearly Dies from Abortion Pill, Story Reflects Disturbing EPPC Data
Focus on the Family Broadcast: Abortion Pill Reversal
#AbortionChangesYou: A Case Study to Understand the Communicative Tensions in Women’s Medication Abortion Narratives (Health Communication)
The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event (Ethics and Public Policy Center)
