By Sarah Neely

Operation Rescue’s 2023 Annual Report is set to release very soon! More on this and the overall landscape of abortion in a post-Roe nation.  

In 2021, the organization known as the National Missed Period Pill Working Group launched PeriodPills.org, a website that seems set on erasing any idea of pregnancy or the life of a child in connection with chemical abortions. 

The website rebrands the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol – the combination used in chemical abortion – as “period pills.” It claims that women simply take the “period pills” when “your period is late and you suspect that you are pregnant when you don’t want to be.”

The site frames a chemical abortion, not as a life-changing decision that will end the life of another human, but as a simple medicine that just “brings down” your period. The so-called “medicine” in no way requires a pregnancy test — in fact fact, the site shamelessly pushes for women to keep themselves in the dark about whether or not they are actually pregnant. 

In the FAQ heading “How Do Period Pills Work,” the site casually points out that “since pregnancy is not verified before taking the pills, a person will never know if they were or weren’t starting a pregnancy when they took the pills.” In other words, a woman will never have to acknowledge the life of her unborn child or explore feelings of guilt or regret about ending that life through abortion.

The site goes on to reiterate why remaining ignorant is such a better idea, emphasizing how “scary” it can be to have a late period and that “using medications to bring down a person’s period can alleviate much of this stress and anxiety…”

Nowhere on the site are women warned of the dangerous side effects of chemical abortions, and there is certainly no mention of the documented women who have died from complications. To date, the FDA reports 32 deaths tied to mifepristone and more than 4,000 adverse events.

A 2023 fact sheet published by the Charlotte-Lozier Institute also reports chemical abortions have a complication rate four times higher than surgical abortions. The fact sheet also states that, out of 100 women who choose chemical abortion in early pregnancy, 3 to 7 will require follow-up care to finish the abortion. 

Physical complications are not the only negative outcomes associated with abortion. A 2016 study in Finland found that abortion experiences are consistently associated with an increase in mental health disorders during late adolescence and early adulthood. Other studies have revealed an increase in drug use among post-abortive women, as well as increases in depression (37%) and anxiety (34%). 

Simply avoiding a pregnancy test seems an unlikely cure-all for the emotional trauma that accompanies abortion, whether chemical or surgical. 

PeriodPills.org mentions none of this. In fact, it functions as a landing page for women seeking to have pills mailed to their home, likely without ever seeing a doctor. And, if they follow the advice of this site, they will also ingest the dangerous pills without ever taking a pregnancy test. 

The website even promotes taking the abortion-inducing regimen “regardless of pregnancy status,” arguing that abortion pills can have “benefits” whether or not you are actually pregnant. To demonstrate this point, the site bizarrely compares abortion pills to “antimalarial medicines,” pointing out that they can be taken whether or not you actually come into contact with malaria. Forget normalizing abortion, let’s just normalize abortion pills as a woman’s go-to remedy for any delay in her menstruation. 

The website pushes ideas like this as completely normal, suggesting that America is somehow behind the curve while other countries have known this “truth” for years. However, it only lists two countries as examples, Bangladesh and the Totalitarian Communist State of Cuba. (Suddenly normalizing abortion pills as a go-to remedy has a much more forced-population-control feel to it.)

To bring America up to snuff, PeriodPills.org seems willing to ignore laws in abortion-free states, and 10 others that ban abortion pills via telemedicine. The site proudly boasts, “Period pills are now available through telehealth in all 50 states and US territories!” 

In states where abortion is banned, like Alabama and Tennessee, the site offers a link to providers willing to mail abortion pills to anyone. For most of those states, this link takes you to Cambridge Reproductive Health Consultants, a group clearly dedicated to creating a virtual back-alley abortion network that will “send packages to any address in the US” for $250 a pop. Profit over patient care seems to be the leading principle of groups like this. (Maybe they learned it from Cuba.)

Cari Sietstra, lead consultant on the Period Pills Project is also a founder for Cambridge Reproductive Health Consultants. Other groups known for pushing the limit on abortion pills by mail, like Carafem and PlanC, are also listed as Organizational Members of PeriodPills.org. (More information about PlanC is forthcoming this week.)

In Operation Rescue’s annual survey, which is nearly ready for release, the dangerous trends and deceptive tactics being used by these virtual pill peddlers are presented in great detail. This recent attempt by PeriodPills.org to rebrand chemical abortion as nothing more than “menstrual regulation” is just one more lie in a long line of deceptions aimed at erasing the child in the womb and downplaying what an abortion truly is – the taking of an innocent life.

Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, comments, “Changes in rhetoric cannot hide the endless exploitation of women and brutal destruction of children that America has witnessed from the abortion cartel over these last fifty years. Though it may try again and again, the evil of abortion cannot erase the preborn child. We see her. We speak for her. We will never stop exposing these lies.”

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