Antiabortion extremists are ramping up their attack on reproductive rights with a sweeping plan to ban abortion pills nationwide—weaponizing federal agencies, state laws and even local governments to criminalize access.
Not satisfied with the overthrow of Roe v. Wade and Trump’s compliance with nearly all things Project 2025, right-wing conservatives are pushing the president to go further. In a chilling blueprint riddled with anti-science, called “Stopping Pills that Kill,” antiabortion groups urge President Trump to stop the movement of domestic and international abortion pills using the Comstock Act of 1873 and a dragnet of new regulations.
Medication abortion was first approved in the U.S. in 2000 and has been reevaluated by the Food and Drug Administration at least four times in response to new research; it’s proven safe each time. American women can currently access abortion pills through brick-and-mortar healthcare providers, telehealth providers and international advocates (Aid Access). Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S. Research shows that less than 1 percent of patients experience serious side effects.
The new scheme calls for every U.S. law enforcement entity to play a role—federal, state and city/county agencies.
Starting at home, extremists urge Trump to compel federal prosecutors to criminally charge providers of abortion pills, weaponizing both the Comstock Act and racketeering statutes (RICO) for using the postal system. They would add regulations governing the U.S. postmaster general and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to list abortion pills as “nonmailable … hazardous materials or devices that may present an immediate threat to persons,” which would make shipping them a federal offense carrying civil and possibly criminal penalties.
Conservative state legislatures are urged to expand the use of existing laws, such as state RICO laws, to ensnare providers and patients in new ways like expanding consumer protection laws to define abortion pills as “dangerous and illegal products.” States could also confer a private right of action on their citizens to sue abortion pill providers serving patients in their states, thereby increasing the amount of litigation and the fear of litigation.
Lastly, conservative states could work together in unprecedented ways states through interstate agreements to assist with enforcement and prosecutions of “pill traffickers.”
Adding fuel to the right-wing agenda, conservative city and county officials are directed to enact ordinances declaring federal law “the supreme Law of the Land,” regardless of contrary state law allowing abortion. Localities could create private civil causes of action, and more cities could declare themselves “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn.” There are currently more than 70 such cities. This January, Rolla, Miss., near St. Louis, rejected becoming the first such city in Missouri, less than a month after a state constitutional amendment legalizing abortion went into effect. The measure was rejected by Rolla’s city council, citing concerns about national attention and costly litigation.
But banning medication abortion in the U.S. isn’t enough for extremists. They also want to lower an iron curtain isolating U.S. women from international advocates such as Aid Access, which they recklessly call an “international cabal of abortion pill traffickers.”
To accomplish this, the antiabortion manifesto calls for new laws weaponizing the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Borders and Customs Agency to inspect and interdict international purchases.
Of course, antiabortion groups bemoan the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case challenging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of medication abortion. They insist Trump immediately direct the FDA to invalidate its approval of mifepristone. Mifepristone is part of a two-medication regimen first approved in the U.S. in 2000 and is legal in nearly 100 countries. Any move by Trump to terminate mifepristone’s use in the U.S. would represent a dangerous rollback on scientific progress for purely political purposes.
