Pro-Life Group Sounds Alarm on 'Abortion Drug Cartel' Smuggling Abortion Pills to Bypass State Laws

A pro-life organization has written a letter to members of Congress demanding the federal government order law enforcement agencies to investigate reports of a secret network smuggling banned abortion pills into U.S. states from Mexico. 

In the letter dated Oct. 25, Kristen Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, claimed "A shocking new report details how the Biden Administration's obsession with death by elective abortion has created an abortion drug cartel at the Mexican border," citing a report earlier this month from The Washington Post. 

Hawkins demanded that "the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigate and prevent drug crimes that include abortion pills."  

The pro-life leader also called on Congress to require a new environmental impact study by the FDA and EPA given the widespread use – including illegal use – of pills sold to cause death by abortion.

"When Congress reconvenes, addressing an emerging abortion pill cartel must be a priority," she continued.

Last summer, several media outlets reported about an underground network in Mexico smuggling abortion pills into U.S. states that have outlawed the procedure. 

"The medications are arriving in a thousand ways, in creative ways, into the hands of women," Verónica Cruz Sánchez told CNN. She's a prominent Mexican abortion activist whose group, Las Libres, reportedly helps to run the smuggling network. 

In her letter, Hawkins reminded congressional leaders of the Biden administration's No Test online distribution of chemical abortion pills.

"And it's no excuse for allowing networks to form intent on selling drugs illegal or regulated in some states. Students for Life Action will be prioritizing this issue – now the number one cause of elective abortion deaths in America," she wrote. 

The use of abortion pills has been rising since 2000 when the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone — the main drug used to induce abortions.

As CBN News reported, just days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v Wade, the Biden administration unveiled an "action plan" to increase access to "the abortion pill" in states where abortion is outlawed.

But the dangerous side effects of the abortion pill are rarely reported, and the risks are very real.  

Tessa Longbons, a senior research associate with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told CBN News many pro-life advocates refer to the abortion pill, or RU-486, as chemical abortions, and says her organization has discovered the practice can be more dangerous than surgical abortions, despite the FDA's pronouncement that it's safe. She says the FDA's claim was largely based on incomplete reporting data.

"As many as 95% of all abortion pill complications are not reflected in FDA's data and they don't even collect most data anymore. They only require reporting on deaths," she said.  

The procedure begins with taking a pill called mifepristone which blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy to continue. That's followed one or two days later by misoprostol, a drug that essentially causes a woman to go into labor, pushing the body of the deceased child from the womb. The combination is approved for use within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, although some healthcare providers offer it in the second trimester, a practice called off-label use.

Last year, the FDA dropped the requirement that doctors see patients in person before prescribing it, opening the door to a vast telemedicine abortion expansion in which women can receive the pills in the mail without medical oversight.

However, in 32 states, abortion pills must be prescribed by physicians even though other health care providers, including physician assistants, can prescribe other medicines.

Meanwhile, some media outlets have now recommended simplifying the abortion pill regimen to only one of its components – misoprostol – because it's more easily obtained, reads a study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate, Abby Johnson told CBN News she knows first-hand the complications of medical abortions. 

"(Abortion pills) can cause severe bleeding and pain: my medication abortion, which was depicted in the movie Unplanned, caused me to think I was dying but no one at Planned Parenthood told me the truth about what to expect," she explained.  

As the Biden administration pushes chemical abortions, Longbons warns that in the long run, it hurts women. 

"They're pushing for less and less medical oversight, sending the drugs through the mail,"  she added. "Incomplete abortions, where pieces of the baby are left inside the woman's uterus, that is a frequent complication with chemical abortion, and that's why we had so many people admitted to the hospital to have to finish these abortions."  

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