Last week, the Biden administration’s FDA announced that pharmacies across the United States can begin dispensing dangerous abortion pills. 

Shortly after, the two largest pharmacies in the nation, CVS and Walgreens, announced that they plan to carry mifepristone, the first of two drugs needed to perform a chemical abortion. The pharmacies are already able to carry the second abortion drug, misoprostol. 

Former Democrat administrations considered the drug to be so dangerous that it could only be sold by a select few health centers after an in-person examination by a doctor. Now, local pharmacies have become “a branch of the abortion industry,” as Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council says. 

Chemical abortions, which are extremely profitable for abortionists, account for 54% of all abortions. This number will skyrocket if local pharmacies begin distributing the pills just like any other medication.

The difference, however, between mifepristone and any other prescription drug, is that the abortion pill does nothing to improve a patient’s health. It only kills and harms.  

The abortion pill begins a gruesome and excruciating multi-day long process that involves severe cramping, contractions, and bleeding until the baby is expelled. The mother then must endure the trauma of seeing and disposing of her aborted child.

Women who undergo a chemical abortion are 53 percent more likely to require an ER visit than with a surgical abortion. There have been 28 reported maternal deaths due to the pill, and over 4,200 reported severe negative side effects, including hemorrhaging and infections. Most of all, these pills end the life of the unborn child. 

According to Live Action, women who have experienced a chemical abortion describe it as “emotionally scarring and physically horrible”; “the worst thing I’ve ever felt in my life”; “searing, gripping, squeezing pain”; “crushing waves of contractions”; and “like sitting in the middle of a crime scene.”

The good news is that thousands of Christians have signed a petition urging pharmacies not to provide the fastest-growing form of abortion and harm even more women. The petition can be found here. Please take a moment to sign it if you have not already. 

“The neighborhood pharmacy has always stood as a place of healing, where human suffering can be alleviated thanks to the dedicated work of our local pharmacists,” reads the petition. “Abortion-inducing drugs do more than just take the lives of the most vulnerable among us: the unborn — they hurt women.”

In South Dakota, a licensed physician must provide the pill and be present when the pill is taken. However, abortionists have found ways to circumvent the law by mailing abortion pills to women in states that protect unborn babies from chemical abortion. While the federal Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of “any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion,” the Office of Legal Counsel asserted that the law could not be used to prosecute anyone who ships abortion pills to pro-life states if “the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.”

Pro-life laws are our country’s best hope for preventing a flood of abortion pills. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the “No Mail Order Abortions” Act, which prohibits the sending of abortion pills “by courier, delivery, or mail service.” Every pro-life state, including South Dakota, should follow his lead. 

The FDA and the nation’s largest pharmacies have failed to act in the best interest of women’s health. They are prioritizing profit over women’s safety and human decency. Our representatives need to take action and protect women from the so-called “healthcare” that only causes harm.