EXCLUSIVE: Women Harmed By Abortion Drugs Send A Message To Todd Blanche

WASHINGTON — Fourteen women who say they were harmed by abortion drugs are urging Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to settle a federal lawsuit over mail-order abortion drugs involving a woman who says she was coerced into aborting her unborn baby by her boyfriend, according to a letter exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire.

The letter comes ahead of Blanche’s scheduled confirmation hearings, currently set for July 15 and July 16, indicating that Blanche may face questions from Republican senators on the Justice Department’s attitude toward mail-order abortion drugs. Under President Joe Biden, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made it much easier for women to obtain abortion drugs through the mail without safety precautions.

Pro-abortion advocates have argued that the coronavirus pandemic made it necessary for women to be able to abort their babies at home using mail-order abortion drugs. Opponents of the drugs argue that abortions-by-mail have been found to harm many women and open the door to documented cases of coercion and violence.

“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,” reads a letter sent to Blanche on July 8, signed by 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.

The women describe how Markezich, as a young woman in Louisiana, was delighted to discover she was pregnant. Her boyfriend did not feel the same way.

“She wanted her baby. She worked with children, loved them, and did not reject the thought of motherhood,” they wrote. “Yet according to her account, her then-boyfriend changed his mind, used her information to obtain abortion drugs by mail from a California abortionist, and pressured her to take them even though she did not want to end her pregnancy.”

“We grieve with Rosalie because many of us recognize parts of our own stories in hers: the pressure, the confusion, the fear, the absence of real medical care, and the feeling that the system was designed to move drugs faster than it was designed to protect women. No woman should be forced, pressured, deceived, or abandoned into taking drugs that end her child’s life and place her own health at risk.”

The women blame the FDA’s abortion drug policy for putting Markezich in this situation, warning Blanche that the policy is “the same policy the Department is defending in court” through Louisiana v. FDA. They urge the acting attorney general to side with Markezich and settle her legal case immediately so that “abortion drugs are no longer sent through the mail in ways that put women at risk.”

“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.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, told The Daily Wire on Wednesday that the current crisis of mail-order abortion drugs is a “direct result of Biden federal policy.” Her organization has documented a number of cases of abortion drug coercion and violence across the nation, including the alarming story of a U.S. Army captain sentenced to 12 years in prison who poisoned a female junior soldier with mifepristone and killed their baby.

“Again,” she said, “we implore Acting AG Blanche as the Senate weighs his nomination: please, listen to the survivors and settle the case without further delay.”

A Fifth Circuit panel had previously found that Markezich’s case was “strongly likely” to succeed based on their claim that the FDA mail-order abortion rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act. But opponents of the abortion drugs argue that the litigation will take a long time to resolve while women and babies are continuing to be harmed.

“Settling this case would send a clear message that women’s safety matters, that coercion is real, that state laws protecting women and unborn children deserve respect, and that the Department of Justice will not ignore the real-world consequences of weakened abortion-drug safeguards,” write the fourteen women harmed by abortion drugs.

“We do not all share the same story, the same zip code, or the same season of life,” they added. “But we are united in asking the Department of Justice to recognize the harm women have suffered and to act before more women are placed in similar danger. For Rosalie, and for women and girls across the country who may never have the chance to tell their stories publicly, we ask you to act with urgency: side with Rosalie, settle the case, and help restore safeguards that can prevent further harm.”

Signer Haile McAnally took abortion drugs that were given to her at an abortion center, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America shared, but when she got home, she began hemorrhaging in her bathtub. A friend discovered her and rushed her to the emergency room where she received a blood transfusion and doctors were able to save her life.

“I am supporting Rosalie because, like so many women, I fell prey to the propaganda surrounding the abortion pill — and it nearly took my life,” she told The Daily Wire on Wednesday. “I received mine in person at a clinic and still suffered serious medical complications; now these drugs are being shipped across the country with little to no oversight. For the health and safety of women, we have to do better — that starts with immediately stopping the mail shipment of these pills.”

Another signer, Jessica Williams, shared that she was pressured to abort her child by her estranged husband and ordered the drugs online through chat, with no screening. The abortion drugs shipped across state lines to a hotel where she picked them up, took them, and then immediately regretted her choice and called a pregnancy center where she obtained abortion pill reversal.

She named her baby daughter, who survived and is thriving, Kaylee Grace, partially after the pregnancy center that helped her.

“Every woman deserves to make decisions free from coercion or pressure and with appropriate medical support, screenings & safeguards,” she told The Daily Wire. “The abortion pill carries an FDA black box warning label, as it is not an over-the-counter drug and comes with real risks to the lives of both mother and baby.  I am a nurse and a woman who has experienced coercion from a partner to take the pill, but my child was saved by abortion pill reversal. Some women and children are not that fortunate because of mail-order drugs.”