Last week, the United States Supreme Court announced that they will hear the biggest abortion case since the reversal of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson. The case centers around Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) reckless decisions to permit the dangerous chemical abortion regimen drug to be sold in pharmacies and through the mail.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that nearly 60% of abortions nationwide utilize abortion inducing drugs, and in Louisiana we know that women, even minors, can access these drugs through online distributors. For example, it is dangerously easy for Louisianans to order them on websites like Red State Access and Plan C. These distributors often have little to no medical training and simply ask women a few questions before providing them with the abortion pills. There is no requirement to even provide a positive pregnancy test and they are being obtained without physician instruction.

Additionally, a report released by the Charlotte Lozier institute found that emergency room visits due to the chemical abortion pill increased by 500% between 2002-2015. Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon from National Right to Life, said the following about the dangers of ingesting these pills: “When hundreds of thousands of women take these pills, even a couple of percentage points of women hemorrhaging, dealing with infections, or ectopic pregnancy, means thousands of women desperately seeking emergency treatment, which may or may not be nearby.”

We know too that the chemical abortion regimen is fatal for the unborn child, weakening or killing the baby through starvation. The second drug used in the regimen, Misoprostol, is taken to induce early labor for the deceased baby. We look forward to the Supreme Courts review next year.