Abortion pill manufacturers are openly advertising their willingness to flout U.S. laws and FDA regulations, according to a report released Tuesday by Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) analyst Mia Steupert. The report found eight online companies that illegally ship abortion drugs into pro-life states, 10 companies still active after being cited for violating regulation since 2019, and 64 companies willing to dispense mifepristone beyond the gestational age approved by the FDA.

“We suspected this was happening, but it was very interesting to see that the drug companies advertising are willing to blatantly advertise that they are breaking the FDA’s regulations. So they’re not shy about it,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, CLI vice president and director of medical affairs, on “Washington Watch.” “Instead of ‘safe, legal and rare,’ the abortion industry has now become [about] ‘abortion access over safety.’ They don’t care if the women become collateral damage.”

To compile the damning information, Steupert did not even need to engage in any risky, undercover operations. She “just went online, as any woman in crisis might do. And she easily was able to find companies that would sell these drugs,” shared Skop. “Many of them are outside of the formal U.S. medical system. That means these are unvetted drugs being sent in from international distributors. That is against the law.”

“Federal law prohibits the mailing of abortion drugs within the formal U.S. healthcare system and the importation of unapproved abortion drugs outside of the formal healthcare system,” stated the CLI report. “However, the federal government hasn’t enforced these laws.”

Skop argued the FDA is failing to enforce even the extremely relaxed guidelines it adopted during the Biden administration. “Really, the American public ha[s] been given a bait and switch by the FDA,” she said. “The FDA … continues to require prescribers of mifepristone to have the, quote, ‘ability’ to rule out an ectopic [pregnancy], to accurately determine gestational age, to provide surgery when these drugs fail — and they fail frequently. And yet the fact that they have the ability, it doesn’t mean that the FDA is holding them accountable.”

For example, the CLI report “demonstrated that … there’s very little screening … going on,” added Skop. “There is no confirmation of who is ordering the drugs. So, none of the companies required an ID to determine whether the person who said they were a woman seeking an abortion was actually that woman.”

One consequence of the lack of screening is that men are able to obtain the abortion drugs and force them upon women, whether as abusers or traffickers.

A recent report by Family Research Council compiles numerous resulting cases of abuse. “We have instances of men sprinkling the abortion drugs on their girlfriends’ pancakes,” listed Mary Szoch, director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity, on “Washington Watch.” “We have instances of men holding a gun to their girlfriend and telling her she’ll have to take the pills. We have … men who are slipping it into women’s hot chocolate, others who have put it in their water bottles.”

“These are situations that are 100% enabled by the current way that the laws surrounding the mailing of abortion drugs are not enforced,” she added, “The FDA regulations surrounding abortion drugs are not anywhere near safe — for anyone, certainly not safe for the unborn child, but also not safe for the mother.”

Indeed, disregard for women’s safety seems to characterize the entire process. “It’s been demonstrated on a number of occasions, [when] women with obvious risk factors ordering these drugs, that the companies are still willing to send them the drugs without verifying that they’re not at risk for a catastrophic complication,” said Skop. “Even the screening that should be done to rule out an ectopic pregnancy … which can be potentially deadly — this is not being done.”

Furthermore, Skop described “active ways” in which abortion drug manufacturers were “suppressing the detection of complications.” Complications from mifepristone include severe bleeding, retained tissue, and infection — conditions which could send a woman to the emergency room. “They tell women, if they should seek care at an emergency room, not to say that they took the drugs, to pretend like they’re having a miscarriage,” Skop explained. “The abortion industry tries to create fear, implying that they’ll be prosecuted, which of course they won’t. But, of course, that ties the doctor’s hands. He doesn’t even know what he’s dealing with.”

As if any further proof were needed that abortion drug manufacturers cared little for the safety of women, Szoch described what happened when federal courts briefly halted the practice of sending abortion pills through the mail to pro-life states like Louisiana. “We saw the abortion industry say … if that goes into effect … they would instead mail misoprostol,” she said.

Misoprostol is used as the second dose in the abortion pill regimen, to expel the dead baby after mifepristone takes its life, although misoprostol has other legitimate uses. “The problem there is,” when used for abortion, “the complications for mothers go through the roof when misoprostol is used alone,” Szoch continued. “There’s an increased risk of hemorrhaging, of uterine rupture, and an increased risk of the unborn baby being born alive and dying very sadly, shortly thereafter.”

Abortion drug manufacturers also deviate from the FDA guidelines on the proper gestational age. The FDA has only approved mifepristone for use up to 70 days’ gestation. However, CLI found that only 19% of suppliers followed the FDA guidelines, while some 64 sellers “were willing to go past the FDA’s recommended use of these drugs … even months higher,” said Skop. “When a woman is further in the pregnancy, failures are much, much higher,” and many have “retained tissue that often requires surgery in emergency conditions.”

And “this was merely looking at the websites. This didn’t really demonstrate whether they even hold themselves to the standards that they say they do,” Skop qualified. “For example, if Aid Access says they’ll mail the pills out up until 14 weeks … if a woman who knew she was 20 weeks pregnant lied and said she was 14 weeks along, there’s no demonstration that they’ll verify” the gestational age.

“The abortion industry loves to claim that abortion is health care,” observed FRC Senior Fellow Jody Hice. “But is it being treated in reality as anything remotely resembling health care?”

Not even close, Skop answered. “This study particularly demonstrates that abortion is occurring absolutely outside of the health care system,” she said. When women used to walk into brick-and-mortar facilities, abortion retained many of the trappings of health care, even though “many women did not receive an adequate informed consent.”

“But that’s gone by the wayside,” said Skop. Now, the abortion drug manufacturers are dispensing pills without any medical evaluation — without even an identity check. In fact, “they are actually promoting to women to get the drugs in advance of pregnancy.”

Sadly, “many of these women do take those drugs immediately, and they regret it almost immediately,” Skop continued. With the current lack of safeguards, “they’re not even giving themselves a chance to think about, what do they really want to do? I think all of us can see how evil this ideology is.”

“It’s not especially surprising to me that operators online who are designed to be what the late Pope Francis often called ‘hitmen,’ who provide a drug that kills an innocent unborn child — it’s not surprising to me that those people don’t care about the mother, either,” Szoch reflected. “What is surprising, though, is that the American people have stood idly by and watched while this happens, allowing our legislators and our administration to not actively step in and do something to put an end to this.”

“I think largely the American people are in the dark there. I mean, there’s groups like us trying to get the word out, but most people are not aware that this is taking place,” Hice hypothesized. “Certainly, this is an area … the administration could step in.”

“We would love to see the enforcement of the Comstock Act,” Szoch suggested. “The Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of any drug that is intended to cause an abortion. And this is a long-standing federal law. It’s obviously being violated all over the country, but where it’s most egregious … is when it’s [vendors in] pro-abortion states who are mailing abortion causing drugs into pro-life states.”

Secondly, she added, pro-lifers want “the FDA to revoke the approval of mifepristone altogether.”

“Obviously, we are working for the day when no unborn child is killed through abortion,” declared Szoch. “That is obviously our ultimate goal. And we will do whatever we can to save lives along the way.”