Last week,  the New York Post reported that an Illinois man had been charged with intentionally drugging his pregnant girlfriend with chemical abortion drugs, which resulted in the loss of her 7-week-old preborn baby.

The perpetrator, Emerson Evans, has since been charged with two counts of intentional homicide of an unborn child. Moreover, his girlfriend reportedly suffered a “medical emergency” due to the drugs. This outcome is unsurprising, not only given the dangerous nature of chemical abortion drugs, but also because Evans administered four mifepristone pills vaginally to her. A typical medication abortion is supposed to involve a two-step process in which one pill, mifepristone, is taken orally, and 24 hours later, the second pill, misoprostol is taken orally.

This is not the only incident of partners or bad actors abusing chemical abortion drugs. Just last month, a young woman in Texas named Liana Davis filed a lawsuit alleging that her former partner, Christopher Coopride, drugged her with over 10 misoprostol pills that he secretly dissolved in her drink. These pills resulted in the death of the couple’s 8-week-old preborn child – a child that Coopride had repeatedly asked Davis to “get rid of.”

Similarly, Mason Herring, an attorney in Texas, was sentenced to 180 days in jail for attempting to drug his wife Catherine Herring with chemical abortion pills on seven separate occasions. Catherine suffered excruciating pain and a near miscarriage as a result of these attempts. Thankfully, the couple’s daughter survived. However, to this day the 2-year-old girl has ‘developmental delays and attends therapy eight times a week.’

In 2023 in Florida, a young man admitted to convincing his pregnant girlfriend to take chemical abortion drugs by lying and saying they were antibiotics. As a result, his girlfriend lost her baby and began struggling with depression.

These crimes all share a common theme: they all happened after 2021 – the year that the FDA permanently ended the in-person dispensing requirement for chemical abortion drugs.

Pro-life advocates have repeatedly denounced the FDA’s move as dangerous, negligent and harmful for women. They have also highlighted a concerning truth – that with the rise of mail-order abortions post-COVID, more abusers and bad actors have the ability to gain access to dangerous chemical abortion drugs.

The incidents listed above involved partners, husbands and boyfriends. Yet equally horrifying is the reality that these dangerous drugs can just as easily be acquired by pimps or other abusers – think educators, sports coaches or neighbors – who can use them to force abortions and end pregnancies in victims. Moreover, it’s disturbing to realize that these drugs, with their high risk for serious adverse events, could be taken unsuspectingly by women and girls, who are left to suffer the painful consequences alone, without the guidance of a licensed medical professional.

Anecdotally, women report extreme pain from the chemical abortion drugs. According to the FDA’s label, one in 25 women end up visiting the emergency room after using the drugs. And studies have found that nearly 11% of women experience serious adverse events within 45 days of ingesting the pills.

Pro-life advocates have repeatedly called on the FDA to reinstate safeguards on chemical abortion drugs. Just last year, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear a case calling for the FDA to reinstate the safeguards.

Now, as chemical abortion abuse cases continue to make national news, pro-life advocates are poised to continue making their voices heard.