When Catherine Herring’s husband unexpectedly served her breakfast in bed one morning, she found it unusual, but not suspicious. She never imagined that he was trying to kill their unborn child. She also never imagined that he would attempt to poison her six more times. 

Herring’s story is becoming shockingly common among women targeted by the abortion drug mifepristone. Luckily, Herring was able to reverse the chemical abortion that she unknowingly ingested from the water her husband gave her — but not all women are this fortunate. 

The Washington Examiner reported in April that almost 80 pro-life groups sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to support states that sued the Food and Drug Administration over its refusal to better regulate the prescription of abortion pills online. 

Blanche is the interim replacement for Pam Bondi after her exit from the post in April. His confirmation hearing is scheduled for July 15 and July 16. Ahead of this, Blanche received another letter, The Daily Wire revealed. 

On July 8, a letter signed by 14 abortion drug victims, including Tramelle Jones, Sara Huff, Elizabeth Henschel, Dora Rhode Esparza, Jannette Houston, Grace Cardoso, Abby Johnson, Kelly Lester, Erin Woods, Alani Harmon, Haile McAnally, Shanyce Thomas, McKenzie Kaupa-Thiesse, and Jessica Williams, was sent to Blanche. Together, they  underscore their own trauma, as well as the case of Rosalie Markezich, a young Louisiana woman who was coerced into taking abortion drugs by her boyfriend in 2023 and is now a plaintiff in a high-profile case over mifepristone. 

“The Department of Justice must act now to protect women by listening to and standing with Rosalie Markezich, rather than fighting against her in litigation,” read the letter. 

Despite having a criminal record, Markezich’s boyfriend was still able to obtain the drug. “Using my personal email address and mailing address, my boyfriend filled out an online form and ordered the drugs (mifepristone and misoprostol) from an online provider that his sister had used multiple times before,” Rosalie told her attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom. Markezich did not want to take the pills. Her boyfriend coerced her until she ingested them, afraid for her safety if she continued to refuse. 

“I laid in the bathroom for approximately an hour, bleeding and crying for the loss of my child. I could not look at my boyfriend. To avoid him, I went to the garage and lay there on a blood-soaked towel for the rest of the night,” Rosalie remembered. 

She continued, “If the Biden FDA had not removed in-person dispensing, my then-boyfriend would not have been able to obtain abortion drugs and pressure me to take them against my will.”

In the letter, the victims plead with Blanche to see to it that “abortion drugs are no longer sent through the mail in ways that put women at risk.”

Taking an abortion pill from the mail can be very unsafe, Dr. Christina Francis, a pro-life OB-GYN said on The Washington Stand’s “Outstanding” podcast.

“I have taken care of a patient in the emergency room who ordered abortion drugs online, and they were shipped to her from India, so who knows what was in those drugs? She came in with a severe infection, bleeding, but also in early kidney failure. … You can have permanent damage.”

Francis went on to explain that mifepristone can also cause sepsis, which can kill a woman within 24 hours of her blood being infected. 

The group who wrote the letter to Blanche is desperate to see the dangerous side effects that arise from the distribution of mail-order abortion drugs eradicated.

“The federal government should not defend policies that make it easier for men, abusers, traffickers, or anyone else to obtain abortion drugs in a woman’s name and pressure her to take them in isolation,” they write.