Aid Access, an online abortion pill dispensary, is ‘leveraging’ shield laws to exploit pro-life states, according to a survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which used data from the online business.
“The study obtained and analyzed [Aid Access] data on over 118,000 chemical abortion pill packs that were sent during a 15-month time period between July 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024,” wrote Dr. Michael J. New at National Review.
Key Takeaways:
- Virtual abortion pill dispensary Aid Access has been “leveraged[ing]” shield laws in pro-abortion states to protect itself while it profits from mailing abortion pills into pro-life states where abortion is illegal.
- Shield laws protect abortion providers, not women, as no law currently allows for the prosecution of a woman for an illegally-obtained abortion.
- Federal Comstock Laws made the mailing of abortion materials illegal, yet these laws remain unenforced, despite lawsuits in various states against lawbreaking abortion providers, including one wrongful death lawsuit filed by a woman against Aid Access itself for helping her ex-boyfriend to kill their baby.
The Background:
Aid Access, a Netherlands-based virtual abortion pill dispensary, was founded in 2018 by Rebecca Gomperts, who is an author on the JAMA “Research Letter,” entitled, “Provision of Abortion Medications Using Online Asynchronous Telemedicine Under Shield Laws in the US.”
JAMA Research Letter Aid Access (1)
JAMA Research Letter Aid Access (2)
Until recently, Aid Access’ abortion pills were likely shipped into the United Stated through India without Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. In March of 2019, the FDA sent a warning letter to AidAccess.org to cease shipments of the pills to the U.S.
Yet, currently, Aid Access seems to be using U.S. abortion providers — likely protected under state shield laws — to fill prescriptions, and mail abortion drugs into states where those drugs are illegal.
You can buy an abortion pill online and get it by mail….
The FDA has approved abortion pills by mail. Aid Acces[s] works with U.S. based abortion providers in so called shield law states (this means that the states will protect the providers against legal action).
Therefor[e] Aid Access can provide abortion services to all 50 U.S. states including Texas.
Aid Access website exploits shield laws to ship abortion pills
JAMA claims to require “disclosures of potential conflicts of interest” on all submitted manuscripts. The “research letter” was authored by Abigail R. A. Aiken, PhD, James G. Scott, PhD, and Aid Access founder Rebecca Gomperts, PhD.
- Rebecca Gomperts: She not only founded Aid Access but is currently testing the abortion pill to be used as a contraceptive. In addition, she authored a separate study of “advance provision” abortion pill distribution (by Aid Access, of course). “Dr Gomperts reported being founder and director of Aid Access. No other disclosures were reported,” the letter’s disclosures stated.
- Abigail Aiken: She is a member of and contributor at the Society of Family Planning (SFP) and has received multiple SFP grants including a 2025 $500,000 grant to “Understand people’s experiences with remote provision of medication abortion.” SFP, which funded the current JAMA research, was founded in 2005 thanks to a generous contribution from the Packard Foundation and is heavily funded by the Buffett Foundation, both investors in abortion pill manufacturer Danco. Other funders deeply embedded in abortion pill outcomes included the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Reproductive Freedom Foundation, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
- James G. Scott: Not disclosed in the JAMA “research letter” is the fact that author James Scott, who authored other abortion-related articles, is married to Aiken. The University of Texas at Austin, where Aiken and Scott work, was recently invoiced $6,000 by Aid Access for services related to abortion pill studies.
What’s Happening:
In an effort to protect abortion providers from prosecution after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion states have passed a litany of pro-abortion shield laws to thwart criminal or civil charges against abortionists filed by those in other states.
This does not protect women and teens; it protects Big Abortion.
The research letter noted the increase in abortions and suggested (emphases added):
One plausible contributor [to the increase] is the rise of online asynchronous telemedicine abortion services—particularly those operating under shield laws, which allow US-licensed clinicians to provide abortion medications to patients in ban states with protection from legal liability.
Aid Access leverages shield laws to mail abortion medications to residents in 24 states with near-total or telemedicine bans, operating without the need for such protections in states where telemedicine abortion is legally accessible.
Let’s pause for a moment to re-read what the authors claimed: Aid Access reportedly “leverages” so-called “shield laws” in pro-abortion states so they can to flood abortion pills into states that have laws against abortion. One definition of “leverage” is to “exploit” — which is what the abortion pill business seems to be doing.
Dr. New noted at National Review, “… the authors found that over 84 percent of chemical abortion pills were sent to states that had strong pro-life laws in place. Interestingly, about 16 percent were sent to states where abortion is broadly legal.”
New was referring to the study authors’ statement that notes, “Between July 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024, Aid Access provided 118[,]338 medication abortion pill packs to residents of 2649 US counties, of which 99[,]293 (84%) were in states with near-total or telemedicine bans.”
New added:
Overall, an analysis of county level data provides few surprises. Counties in states with strong pro-life laws had a telehealth abortion rate that was over seven times higher than counties located in states with more permissive abortion policies.
Counties with higher poverty rates had higher telehealth abortion rate than counties with lower poverty rates. Furthermore, the rate of telehealth abortions was substantially higher in those counties located longer distances from abortion clinics.
The authors claimed:
Our analysis is limited by reliance on county-level rather than individual-level associations and by data that measure provision of abortion medications rather than completed abortions. Moreover, it does not capture the full scope of telemedicine in states without bans, where other abortion providers also operated during the study period.
Biden-era abortion policies are still in effect, undermining state laws.
JAMA finds 118,000 chemical abortion pill packs were shipped by Aid Access—post Dobbs—over 15 months. Using shield laws, 84% of the abortion pills were mailed into pro-life states.
The Trump… pic.twitter.com/khtRsSaO1s
— Tony Perkins (@tperkins) August 13, 2025
Why It Matters:
The Federal Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of abortion inducing drugs. At least two U.S. Supreme Court Justices previously hinted that the Comstock Act could be in play during oral arguments in the AHM v. FDA lawsuit.
However, it is still happening, with the law remaining unenforced, as abortion providers in multiple states are admittedly shipping abortion drugs “unlawfully” into states that prohibit them or restrict telehealth dispensing. In addition:
- Lawmakers and attorneys general are calling for the FDA to reign in mail-order abortion.
- An abortion pill lawsuit filed by three states in State of Missouri; State of Kansas; State of Idaho v. FDA, argued that their “sovereign” interest in “protecting… citizens” was violated by the FDA decision to allow mail-order abortion pill dispensing.
- Aid Access was recently named in a wrongful death lawsuit for the forced chemical abortion that killed the child of a Texas woman against her will.
- A Texas man filed a federal lawsuit against a California abortionist for mailing abortion pills to someone who coerced his girlfriend to abort his children, potentially testing shield law provisions of the state.
- The State of Texas indicted abortionist Mary Carpenter for mailing the abortion pill to a Louisiana mother who allegedly coerced her minor daughter into an abortion and for also prescribing abortion pills to a Texas woman via telemedicine.
A minor in Louisiana got pregnant. She was excited to have a baby and was planning a gender reveal party.
Her mom conspired with a NY doctor to get a chemical abortion pill in the mail and coerced her to take it. She ended up in the hospital.
There is only one right answer in… pic.twitter.com/qFOu3liTpm
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) February 13, 2025
“Shield laws continue to facilitate the receipt of medication abortion, with an average of 12,330 abortions per month provided under shield laws by the end of 2024,” a June 2025 #WeCount report recently claimed, noting that “nearly half of the telehealth abortions that took place in 2024 were administered by physicians in states with shield laws.”
The Bottom Line:
“The Trump administration must take action now. -1 in 10 women suffer severe complications from the abortion pill. -Traffickers and others use easy drug access to control women and kill unborn children. -State laws are being trampled,” wrote Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins in an X post about the JAMA report.
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