When U.S. Army Captain Brandon Jones-Adams discovered he’d impregnated a female soldier, he decided to take matters into his own hands. With just a few clicks, mail-order abortion drugs offered him the perfect solution.
It is reported that he obtained abortion drugs online using a fake name and a credit card, and had them shipped to him. He then used them to poison his baby and the mother of his child. It was truly that easy. The junior officer experienced severe cramping and was rushed to the emergency room, where the couple’s 13-week-old baby in the womb died. Capt. Jones-Adams later confessed and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for this crime.
Capt. Jones-Adams’ victims are yet another statistic in the growing culture of forced abortion and abuse that these mail-order drugs have created. True justice – for victims of mail-order abortion drugs – requires that the Department of Justice urgently settle ongoing litigation in Louisiana v. FDA. This is a case where the administration is actively fighting the pro-life state of Louisiana from defending its borders against mailed abortion drugs from blue states. Only the complete removal of these drugs from the mail will cripple the dangerous system set up by the Biden administration during the COVID-19 era.
Women once had to be screened in person for coercion or potential life-threatening complications before acquiring these black box drugs. But in 2020, the Biden administration revoked this basic safeguard to promote more abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2023 study found that 45% of women with a history of abortion confirmed their abortions were “inconsistent with [their] preferences,” and an additional 25% said that their abortions were unwanted or coerced. This number has likely skyrocketed in the past few years, given that mail-order abortion rates continue to rise.
An increasing number of women are coming forward with horrifying stories of abortion coercion.
Rosalie Markezich, one of the plaintiffs in Louisiana v. FDA, discovered the dangers of mail-order drugs firsthand when her boyfriend used her information to easily order the pills through the mail. Trapped in a car with him, isolated from any help, Rosalie has told her story of how she was forced to obey his commands and threats that she swallow the drugs. She suffered extreme physical side effects and lost her baby. “If mail-order abortion wasn’t a thing,” she testified, “I’m 100% sure I would have my child.”
Similarly, when an Ohio doctor found out his girlfriend, Jona Affholder, was pregnant, he reportedly used his ex-wife’s information to purchase Mifepristone. As Affholder previously described to the Daily Wire, he poisoned her with the drugs, causing her to hemorrhage severely, and their baby died. A Texas attorney named Mason Herring repeatedly mixed abortion drugs he bought into his wife’s drinks. His wife, Catherine Herring, only discovered his betrayal after she began experiencing extreme side effects – alone, on the bathroom floor.
These recent stories display a disturbing pattern: men of all socioeconomic backgrounds — teenagers, doctors, lawyers, and even Army Captains — are taking advantage of lax regulations to abuse and traumatize American women while killing unborn children in the process.
The current mail-order abortion climate empowers abusive men to access drugs without any meaningful oversight, much less photo ID, and then use those drugs to abuse victims in isolation. This is the ultimate exploitation of women. In fact, a recent investigation by board-certified OB/GYN Dr. Christina Francis found that online abortion businesses don’t require any proof that the person purchasing is an adult woman.
An online site let Dr. Francis order Mifepristone after claiming that she was a minor with a history of ectopic pregnancies and far past the FDA’s recommended gestational window for taking the pills. Responding “yes” to any of these questions should have at once triggered a ban on her ability to buy the pills or at least required an in-person doctor’s appointment first. Instead, the site accepted Dr. Francis’ payment — no further details required.
This escalating crisis should be prompting the administration to call for action.
New studies have found that abortion drugs have a “serious adverse event” rate that is 22 times higher than the FDA suggests. In fact, 75% of ER visits within 30 days after taking abortion drugs were coded as “severe” or “critical.”
The Department of Justice has an opportunity to correct the Biden administration’s overreach. Just last week, more than 80 pro-life organizations and leaders urged Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to resolve Louisiana v. FDA through a court-approved consent decree that would immediately halt the mailing of abortion drugs while the FDA completes its review of Mifepristone’s safety. That basic step would restore meaningful safeguards against coercion while ensuring the agency fully evaluates the mounting evidence surrounding these drugs.
How many more women and children will be poisoned as this case plays out? The DOJ has an obligation to settle Louisiana v. FDA now and help restore the protections that women and their children deserve.
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Marjorie Dannenfelser serves as president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. She has been called “the woman who brought down Roe.”
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