Report: Over 328,000 abortion pills illegally shipped into pro-life states since Dobbs
A new report from the Restoration of America Foundation (ROAF) has found that more than 328,000 abortion pills were illegally shipped into pro-life states as of December 2025, circumventing state laws that were supposed to protect unborn children after the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision.
Since Dobbs overturned the federal right to abortion, 13 states have enacted near-total laws that protect babies from abortion, five states limit abortion to six weeks under heartbeat provisions, and six more restrict telehealth abortion. Yet the report found those protections are being circumvented at a rate of roughly 15,000 mailed abortion pills a month, aided by so-called shield laws that some states have passed specifically to protect abortionists who mail pills across state lines from prosecution.
Mailing abortion-inducing drugs has been illegal under federal law since the Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibits mailing any drug or medicine intended to produce an abortion. A separate ROAF review of insurance claims data found that mifepristone, the drug used in most chemical abortions, is associated with severe complications such as sepsis, hemorrhage and uterine rupture in roughly 11 percent of women who take it, far higher than the rate described on the drug's label.
The report also documented a rising number of coercion cases tied to mail-order abortion pills. Rosalie Markezich of Louisiana has filed suit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after she says her boyfriend ordered abortion pills online and coerced her into taking them without her full consent, ending her pregnancy. Similar cases have surfaced in Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas and Washington state since the FDA approved mail-order abortion.
Final Thoughts
Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, has long called mail-order abortion one of the greatest threats to state-level protections for the unborn, since it allows the abortion industry to reach into pro-life states no matter what their laws say. Enforcing existing federal law against the mailing of abortion drugs remains one of the clearest tools available to close that gap and protect both unborn children and the women being coerced into taking these drugs against their will.
Related resources: Legislative action for the unborn at PriestsForLife.org
