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NEW YORK, November 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Hoping to pave the way for nationwide acceptance of “telemed termination,” abortionists in several states are dispensing dangerous abortifacients by mail despite evidence that dozens of women have died from taking the drugs.

Abortion providers in New York, Oregon, Washington state, and Hawaii mail out abortifacients to pregnant women as part of a “study” to determine the “feasibility and safety” of abortion drugs for use at home without direct doctor supervision.

This type of “mail order” termination would allow the abortion industry to more easily reach into states where abortion is illegal post-Roe.

The pregnant mother has her blood drawn and blood pressure taken, and an ultrasound of the baby is sent to an off-site abortionist, who talks to the woman via televideo and then overnights to her the abortifacient drugs mifepristone (RU486, trademarked, “Mifeprex”) and misoprostol.

RU486 blocks a vital nutrient hormone, causing the baby to literally starve to death in utero. Other chemicals are given to the mother to soften and expand her cervix, and/or generate uterine contractions so that she will deliver her dead baby.

But statistics show that RU486 is already well known to be dangerous to women's health, and critics say that without a physician's personal attention more women will die from the drug.

Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director of the American Association of Prolife Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told LifeSiteNews via email that outside of a doctor's personal supervision, “mail order” abortion drugs, which are already dangerous, are all the more detrimental to women's health.  

“The ultimate dream of pro-choice activists to eliminate medical professionals from the process of abortion will end in a nightmare of women injured and killed by these abortion drugs,” she stated.

If feminists really wanted to find out the “feasibility and safety” of telemed abortions, they could look at India, where the same drugs are sold over the counter. A recent study examined the outcomes for women who used over-the-counter self-administration of mifepristone and misoprostol. The findings are shocking.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research (January 2015), noted that “self-administration of abortion pills is rampant throughout the country,” and as a direct result, “complications are not uncommon due to this practice.”

Following up on cases of women taking abortion drugs without a doctor's personal supervision, the study found that 27.5 percent took abortion pills after the approved time period (nine weeks) and 17.5 percent of women consumed drugs after 12 weeks of gestation or more.

The study also found that a vast majority of self-administering women had serious complications. Excessive bleeding was experienced by 77.5 percent of women, severe anemia by 12.5 percent, and 5 percent of patients went into shock.  

The outcome for Indian women taking abortion pills without a doctor's personal supervision was horrific. Most women had an incomplete abortion (62.5 percent), 22.5 percent had a failed abortion, and 7.5 percent developed potentially life-threatening sepsis.

As a result, 67.5 percent of women had to have surgery, and 12.5 percent had to have surgery and a blood transfusion.

The study concluded, “Unsupervised medical abortion can lead to increased maternal morbidity and mortality.”

Operation Rescue's Cheryl Sullenger explained to LifeSiteNews that her organization warned of the increased risk to women's health from “telemed abortions.”  

“When Planned Parenthood first began experimenting with webcam abortions in 2008, we sounded the alarm to the dangers of dispensing abortion pills outside the personal supervision of a physician,” she said.  “As a result, 16 states have now prohibited dispensing abortion drugs remotely.”

“The availability of abortion drugs by mail or over the Internet is a huge danger to women,” Sullenger concluded.  “We would love to see new federal legislation prohibiting the sale of abortion drugs over the Internet, and with a new administration about to take over Washington, that may now be possible.”

Called “the first Human Pesticide,” RU486 was created in Europe by an offshoot of the same corporation that supplied Hitler with Zyklon B gas used to exterminate six million Jews in death camps.

Banned in the U.S. under the pro-life George H.W. Bush administration, the pro-abortion Bill Clinton administration removed regulatory safety steps to “fast track” RU486 into the country.

Since RU486 became readily accessible in the U.S. in 2000, so many women have died from sepsis (a serious infection involving the bloodstream) that the FDA was forced to issue a Public Health Advisory warning.

More than 1,050 women experienced serious medical problems in the drug’s first five years alone, including emergency blood transfusions, hospitalizations, life-threatening complications, and death.

The drug's label includes a warning. “Serious and sometimes fatal bleeding and infections occur.” Nevertheless, abortion activists want the study to lead to approval for women to take RU486 without doctor supervision.

The Italian Ministry of Health press office reported that at least 34 European women have died as a direct result of chemical abortion.

Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of abortion drugs for the U.S. market, sought to expand its customer base and the Obama administration readily agreed, issuing widened federal prescribing guidelines last March that allow RU486 to be prescribed as far as 10 weeks gestation, up from seven. The result was chemical abortions tripled in some states.

Monty Patterson, whose 18-year-old daughter Holly died from RU486, said, “As long as mifepristone is allowed to be on the market, then women will be subject to the risk of this infection. … These abortion drugs are unpredictable and the health risks can be fatal.”

Dr. Harrison noted that the same results can be expected with “morning-after pills.”

“We can expect similar results in the U.S. when Ella (Ulipristal Acetate), the alternative 'emergency contraceptive drug'  becomes over the counter, since Ella is also a progesterone receptor antagonist, which is equipotent with mifepristone (RU-486) in ending a pregnancy.”