Why mail-order abortion pills could increase the number of dead babies in dumpsters

Stories about the discovery of abandoned, deceased infants have made headlines for years — but the proliferation of mail-order, DIY, no-test abortion pill use has the potential to make these stories even more common.

Bodies are being discarded in dumpsters, garbage cans, toilets, and even on city sidewalks — but because those bodies belong to infants (or to preborn children), many turn a blind eye, despite the fact that those who find the remains are often horrified and traumatized.

Key Takeaways:

• Stories of babies thrown in the trash or abandoned in dumpsters are becoming more common — even in pro-abortion states.

• Some abortion proponents believe legalizing abortion will solve this problem; it won’t.

• The proliferation of the abortion pill is likely to lead to the discovery of even more bodies in such a manner, especially as the “no-test” mail-order abortion pill becomes more common and easy to access.

• Abortion proponents are also calling for police to ignore the bodies and forgo investigations into such cases.

The Context:

On May 18, 2009, a man searching a dumpster at Parkside Apartments in Union City, California, discovered the body of a newborn baby girl. Her umbilical cord was still attached and an autopsy revealed she had died by drowning. Police named her Matea Esperanza and it took 16 years for them to find her mother — her alleged killer.

Although stories similar to this one have made shocking headlines for years, they are at risk of increasing.

In 2023, the Biden-Harris FDA made the decision to allow mail-order abortion pill distribution without any medical oversight. This means women are increasingly being sold the abortion pill from online vendors or out-of-state abortionists with no blood test, no ultrasound, and no pregnancy dating.

Despite the fact that the FDA has only approved abortion pill use through 10 weeks (70 days) of pregnancy, the fact that “no-test” abortion is the order of the day means that many women who order the abortion pill either don’t know how far along their pregnancies are — or those who order it simply don’t care that they are well past the FDA-approved limit.

Approximately 63% of abortions are now committed by abortion pill in the United States — the majority. We would be naive to think that all of that 63% are happening in just the first trimester, given the easy availability of mail-order abortion drugs.

What’s Happening:

2015 – Chemical abortion at 25-30 weeks: A woman in Indiana was sentenced to 20 years in prison after attempting to abort her viable son, estimated to have been 25 to 30 weeks gestation, with abortion pills she bought online. When he was born alive, she wrapped him in a garbage bag and left him in a dumpster. Pro-abortion groups fought to keep her out of jail.

2021 – Chemical abortion at 23-27 weeks: An Ohio woman was indicted on charges related to the disposal of her baby in a motel trash can; the woman had taken abortion drugs. The baby was estimated to have been between 23 and 27 weeks, capable of surviving outside the womb with medical assistance. Police were unable to determine if the baby was born alive — but at the time, abortion was only legal up to 20 weeks in Ohio.

2024 – Chemical abortion at 21-22 weeks: Police found the body of a baby in the back of a woman’s car during a routine traffic stop. She had ordered “a pill” to abort the baby and gave birth to a stillborn son at her home. An autopsy found the baby boy was about 21 to 22 weeks gestation.

2024 – Chemical abortion likely at or after 5 months: A South Carolina woman made headlines when she faced charges following the death of her newborn baby in 2023. Amari Marsh was arrested and charged with homicide after she gave birth on a toilet at home and covered the infant with toilet paper, refusing to remove her from the toilet at police request. According to the incident report, Marsh had obtained the abortion pill from Planned Parenthood four to eight weeks before her child was born — but later she claimed she never went to Planned Parenthood. A grand jury declined to indict Marsh on murder charges.

2025 – Chemical abortion at 20 weeks: An investigation was opened in Louisiana in May, revealing that New York abortionist Margaret Carpenter had mailed the abortion pill to a woman in Shreveport, Louisiana, who was reportedly 20 weeks pregnant (10 weeks beyond the FDA-approved gestational limit). The woman threw the baby’s body in the trash and then went to the hospital. When she told police where the baby’s body was, they launched an investigation.

These are just a few of the recent horrific stories that have unfolded. As the abortion pill becomes the number one choice for aborting children and continues to be used at home with no medical oversight, stories like these are going to become more common.

Imagine walking down the street in Michigan, as Daniel Foster and his wife were in April of 2023, and finding a baby’s body — a male, 20-23 weeks — on the sidewalk. “There’s no words or expression to explain that other than being traumatized from it,” he said (emphasis added).

The child’s mother, reportedly a drug user, had been walking down the sidewalk when she gave birth to the baby boy, removed him from her pants, and tossed him onto the sidewalk.

Police Chief Terence Green explained, “The grandmother [of the baby] made the statement that, and I quote, ‘She didn’t understand what the big deal was. People throw trash and needles on the sidewalk all the time.'”

In Michigan, where the incident occurred, Proposal 3 (passed in November 2022) says, “The state shall not penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion” (emphases added).

Read that again.

Why It Matters:

‘Just ignore them’?

Such a flippant attitude towards human life — and one’s own child — is the result of the successful dehumanization of preborn human beings. Babies are being tossed on the side of the road and in dumpsters and flushed down toilets as if they are waste. Because that’s exactly what the abortion industry has told people for years.

Now, some abortion supporters are calling for a halt on investigations into the discovery of human remains even when those humans are infants — the most vulnerable among us.

Long-time pro-abortion activist Jessica Valenti complained recently about an investigation that took place after an infant’s body was found in a dumpster at a Toledo apartment complex. She wrote on her blog, “Apparently someone reported pregnancy remains found in a trash bin outside a Toledo apartment complex — and instead of recognizing it as a private medical loss, police opened an investigation.”

Imagine being upset that the police are investigating the discovery of a human body in a trash bin!

She later wrote:

… the real question is why Ohio police are investigating a miscarriage at all!

Remember, there are no laws about how to dispose of a miscarriage—nor should there be. And even if authorities suspected this was an abortion, Ohio law bars the prosecution of patients. So there was no reason for police to be involved.

Still, they opened a case, treated this like a potential crime scene, and even sent the remains of this miscarriage for an autopsy.

‘No reason for police to be involved’ — in a situation involving a dead body?

Police cannot ignore a body under the assumption that it was a “private” or natural loss of life. They also cannot ignore the body of a baby under the assumption that the child was ‘successfully’ killed inside the womb versus outside the womb.

‘Traumatizing those who find them’

Pro-abortion writer Amanda Marcotte, however, actually admitted in a Salon piece that people can be traumatized when they find the remains of dead babies thrown out like trash — which, in her reasoning, means that states shouldn’t restrict abortion. She wrote (emphasis added):

Abortion bans don’t just kill women. They kill babies. This is evident in the data, which shows a dramatic rise in the state’s infant mortality after Texas banned abortion.

As the Washington Post documented last week, it’s also happening in a viscerally disturbing way, as the number of newborns found abandoned to die has spiked, as well. Babies, mostly dead, are being found in ditches and dumpsters throughout Texas, traumatizing the people who find them and the emergency workers who are called to help. 

Only the biggest liars in the anti-choice movement — and to be fair, there’s stiff competition for that award — would deny that the state’s abortion ban is the main cause of the sharp increase in dead, abandoned babies.

The problem with that idea is that aborted babies are also thrown out like trash. Clearly, that’s not going to fix the problem of finding dead babies.

Now that women are left to abort these children at virtually any age with mail-order abortion pills, where does Marcotte think the bodies of aborted babies too big to flush down the toilet are going to go?

Will the discovery of those recognizably human bodies be any less traumatic for the people who find them?

The Bottom Line:

Expansive access to the abortion pill isn’t going to get rid of the problem of dead babies in trash cans in dumpsters — it’s going to exacerbate it.

It might be already.

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