National Right to Life Joins Coalition Letter Seeking a
Ban on Illegal Sales of Abortion-Inducing Drugs Over the Internet

 

WASHINGTON, D.C.— National Right to Life joined more than four dozen pro-life and pro-family groups in a letter sent today to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking the FDA to seize websites selling abortion drugs illegally in the United States and to investigate illegal internet sales of abortion-inducing drugs.

The FDA applies “Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy” (REMS) restrictions to the mifepristone abortion method because of the potential danger to women using the abortion-drug combination involving mifepristone and misoprostol. Only FDA-approved entities can distribute the abortion method in the U.S. because of the REMS restrictions.

“Internet sales of mifepristone have the potential to multiply the inherent dangers of the drug combination, further endangering women’s lives which are already at risk in the abortion procedure,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

When the FDA approved mifepristone as an abortion method, REMS restrictions were put in place because of the life-threatening complications that are possible with the use of the drug. The FDA has compiled a record of nearly two dozen deaths and thousands of complications associated with its use which include “adverse events” such as serious infections, severe hemorrhage, and the rupture of previously undiscovered ectopic pregnancies. This dangerous track record proves that the REMS restrictions are necessary.

The FDA sent warning letters to the entities selling abortion-inducing drugs illegally over the internet. In the letter to AidAccess, the FDA wrote that it “cause[s] the introduction into interstate commerce of misbranded and unapproved new drugs.” In the FDA’s letter to Rablon, the FDA noted that the company “introduces into interstate commerce misbranded and unapproved new drugs.”

 

“Mifepristone puts at risk perfectly healthy mothers who are pregnant with perfectly healthy babies,” said Tobias. “No woman’s life should be placed at risk because abortion activists are trying to score political points.”

 

The full text of the letter can be found here.