On May 14, the U.S. Supreme Court yielded to abortion-drug manufacturers Danco and GenBioPro, allowing mifepristone to continue flowing into pro-life states through the mail. Here’s what that actually means.
The abortion industry tells us that mail-order abortions now account for 27% of all abortions in the country. That’s 27% of all abortions happening without any interaction with a medical professional to screen for things like ectopic pregnancy, coercion, or gestational age. And that number continues to rise.
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The abortion industry also tells us that the number of mail-order abortions per month in 2025 reached 26,900. Of those, approximately 14,780 were “provided under shield laws.” According to the Society of Family Planning, “shield law” abortions are code for “unlawful” chemical abortions under state laws. That means, as of June 2025, more than half (55%) of all mail-order abortions were unlawful mail-order abortions because of either state-based abortion or telehealth restrictions. That’s 14,780 unlawful abortions perpetrated using FDA-approved, mail-order mifepristone every month.
Let’s get even more granular on this monthly data.
Setting aside the 1,990 unlawful abortions in states that permit abortion drugs but outlaw them by mail, the results are even more concentrated. Pro-life states that protect life from the moment of conception are inundated by approximately 9,000 unlawful mail-order abortions every month. Those 9,000 mail-order abortions comprise nearly 100% of all abortions in those pro-life states. States that protect life after six weeks or later are seeing approximately 3,790 unlawful mail-order abortions every month.
Together, that’s 12,790 unborn children every month who would otherwise have been protected under state law from destruction — 12,790 unborn children every month who the states were told after the fall of Roe v. Wade that they would be able to protect.
Those results are devastating.
Of course, these numbers say nothing of the roughly 4,210-plus women who will end up in emergency rooms every month after taking these drugs as directed (per the labeled rate, which includes in-person office visits), or the countless women who will be subjected to coercion at the hands of abusers who order the drugs for their own clandestine purposes.
Let’s park there for a minute.
Take Rosalie Markezich, plaintiff in the case just before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her ex-boyfriend ordered FDA-approved abortion drugs from a California doctor named Remy Coeytaux without Rosalie’s consent and had them unlawfully shipped to her home in Louisiana. When she refused to take them, her then-boyfriend, who had a criminal record and history of anger issues, physically isolated Rosalie in a car and berated her for ruining his life. His behavior escalated until Rosalie, terrified, deduced that her best chance of escape was to swallow the drugs in front of him and book it to the bathroom as soon as possible to throw them up. She lost the race against the clock, and the drugs took her child’s life.
The Supreme Court could have protected women like Rosalie.
Take also an anonymous teenager from Louisiana whose abusive mother ordered FDA-approved abortion drugs in the mail from New York doctor Margaret Carpenter. The abusive mother forced her to take them against her will, ending the life of her unborn grandchild and sending her teenager to the hospital in an ambulance.
The Supreme Court could have protected young women like this teenager, too.
Instead, the court’s order allows mail-order abortion drugs to continue flowing into Louisiana and all other pro-life states, not only until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decides how to resolve the state of Louisiana and Rosalie’s appeal, but until the Supreme Court has occasion to grant or deny certiorari in the same case. That could take almost a year.
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One year; 153,480 babies; 50,520 emergency room visits.
Let us hope that the next time the High Court does consider this case, these lives, these women, will also be considered, lest the Dobbs promise turn out to be nothing more than a hollow gesture.
Gabriella McIntyre is legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Life.