Update on May 4, 2026, following the Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily restore access to the abortion pill mifepristone:
"Friday's Fifth Circuit decision wasn't intended to be the final ruling on mailing mifepristone; it was a temporary judgment. We are pleased that the Supreme Court will conduct the thorough review of abortion pill shipments that our movement has long sought. And we look forward to a final ruling that prioritizes women's safety above the abortion industry's bottom line."
American women are safer today, the Massachusetts abortion industry undoubtedly crippled, after a court ruled Friday that, in order to receive a prescription for abortion pills, women must first be examined in person by a medical professional.
That commonsense safety provision was eliminated in 2023 by President Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing “telehealth” abortions to dramatically increase. Virtually anyone could obtain mifepristone without ever seeing a doctor.
Mifepristone prevents nutrients and critical pregnancy hormones from reaching unborn babies, ending their lives. If ingested too late into pregnancy or during an ectopic pregnancy, mifepristone leads to serious health complications and death for women as well. Gestational age dangers aside, mifepristone carries safety risks for women and has led to countless emergency room visits. (Women are often advised by abortion providers not to reveal to ER personnel that they took abortion pills and suggest women report a miscarriage instead. Doctors are not required to report complications from mifepristone. So, it is impossible to accurately assess mifepristone-related ER visits.)
By removing the requirement for in-person visits, the FDA not only threatened women’s safety but enabled others, including abusive partners and sex traffickers, to coerce and trick minors and women into having abortions they did not want. Coerced abortion is illegal in all 50 states.
Friday’s ruling by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals significantly impacts the Massachusetts abortion industry. According to the state’s Department of Public Health, in 2023 and 2024 Massachusetts providers sold “telehealth” chemical abortions to more than 37,000 consumers. Over 34,000 of them live outside Massachusetts; many, if not most, received mifepristone in the mail, even if their state implemented pro-life protections.
Not only has Massachusetts leadership actively undermined abortion laws in other states, but Governor Maura Healey enacted widespread “shield laws” that prevented Massachusetts abortion providers from being held accountable. Healey’s expanded shield law introduced last summer even hides the prescriber’s identity, making it impossible for women to seek justice if they are harmed by abortion pills or lost a child they intended to deliver.
Because Massachusetts prioritizes “access” over women’s safety and well-being, already disregarding laws across the country, it is possible that our state’s providers will simply ignore the May 1 temporary court ruling, too. By extension, they will continue to ignore vulnerable women.
The Boston Globe reports today about one telehealth provider who works with The Massachusetts Medication Abortion Project and promises that “We will do everything in our power to continue providing care to people in all 50 states.”
At the heart of things, of course, are the beating hearts of millions of unborn babies like these eight-week models. By this stage of pregnancy, an embryo’s cellular migration and cell differentiation are complete, forming small but perfect organ systems.
Louisiana fought for these lives as it called out the FDA’s lax telehealth standards, leading to Friday’s pro-life win.
“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is [a] human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,’” Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote in the opinion.
Through our Truth About Choice memorials, Massachusetts Citizens for Life provides a visual of what our state leadership has prompted in Louisiana and in other states; in 2024, it sold more abortions to out-of-state consumers than to residents.
In the coming months, we will continue to hold these events not only to reveal the heartbreaking reality and scale of “choice” but to share resources for men and women in need. Because the fact is that women often want a choice other than abortion. But the abortion industry does not offer it.
The pro-life movement stands ready to walk alongside women who want to choose life and those who made a different choice yet seek compassion and support while healing. We understand that a mother's heart cannot simply forget a lost child, though the abortion industry tells her, sells her on, the hollow promise that she can.
I ask for your prayers and support as we carry out this work. Until you and I change minds and redirect policies of our misguided state leaders, Massachusetts will exist only as an empty cradle of liberty.
With hope,
Myrna