Mayday Health targets 'working class clientele' with abortion pill ads in laundromats

Mayday Health, an organization that promotes at-home chemical abortions, has begun running advertisements for the abortion pill at California laundromats.

Key Takeaways:

• Mayday Health was formed in 2022 in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with the goal of telling women how to access mifepristone, also known as the abortion pill, even if they live in a pro-life state.

• The group has been running ads promoting abortion in pro-life states.

• The latest ad campaign from Mayday Health includes ads inside California laundromats.

The Details:

Though California is an extremely pro-abortion state, Mayday Health has launched an ad campaign in laundromats — to target a very specific demographic. MayDay Health founder, Leo Raisner, explained that it chose to advertise in laundromats in an effort to reach "working class clientele."

Calo News reported that pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) outnumber abortion facilities in the state, which led Mayday to launch the ad campaign at 50 laundromats across Los Angeles and San Diego.

“We know that these laundromats serve a high number of Spanish-speaking clients, so in every single laundromat, we put out both English and Spanish advertisements,” Raisner said.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. are committed on unmarried, non-white women, which could be why Raisner chose to target Hispanic women. According to the latest data, Hispanic Americans comprise 19.2% of people living in the United States, but account for 21.2% of abortions. 

Zoom In:

Raisner also used scare tactics to argue why women, even in pro-abortion California, need greater access to abortion. “Oftentimes, maternal deaths happen because there are severe medical emergencies that could have been prevented had women had the right to choose to terminate their pregnancy,” he claimed.

This is not based in fact, and recent analyses show that pro-life states do not see higher rates of maternal mortality. Additionally, induced abortion — the intentional, targeted killing of a preborn child for death — is not medically necessary.

“In situations where the mother’s life is truly in jeopardy, her pregnancy must end and her baby must be delivered,” neonatologist Kendra Kolb said. “These situations occur in cases of mothers who develop dangerously high blood pressure, have decompensating heart disease, life-threatening diabetes, cancer, or a number of other very serious medical conditions. Some babies do need to be delivered before they are able to survive outside of the womb, which occurs around 22 to 24 weeks of life. These situations are considered a preterm delivery and not an abortion.”

The Pro-Life Reply to: "Is Abortion Ever Medically Necessary?"

Raisner also repeated the debunked abortion industry lie that mifepristone is safer than Tylenol.

“Abortion pills have been FDA approved for two decades," he said. "The anti-abortion movement would love for people to think that this medication is unsafe, but it's just not. Abortion pills actually lead to fewer hospitalizations than Tylenol. This is an extremely safe medication."

But as Live Action News' own analysis revealed:

A valid comparison of hospital visit frequency must account for the frequency with which both drugs are taken. Fortunately, this data is available. This 2016 study sought to analyze trends in acetaminophen-related adverse events, and tracked the rate of annual ER visits relative to annual sales of the drug. It found that, for the year 2012 (the most recent year covered by the study), there were 282.1 acetaminophen-related ER visits for every 1 (one) million units sold. Assuming typical dosage to be equivalent to two tablets, this means that .056% of doses sold resulted in a hospital visit (282.1/500,000 = .00056).

But even this number is inflated compared to mifepristone’s hospital visit rate, because it includes children and people who intentionally overdosed, populations which are irrelevant to mifepristone’s calculations. 

And what is mifepristone’s hospital visit rate?

A recent study conducted by the abortion industry itself found an ER and urgent care visit rate of 6%. That’s 107 times greater than the rate for acetaminophen/Tylenol, which again, is actually a low number if we were to compare equivalent populations.

According to a recent analysis of a large insurance database, the abortion pill's adverse events occurred at a rate 22 times higher than the rate reported on the drug's Food and Drug Administration label. Another study found chemical abortions to be four times more dangerous than first-trimester surgical abortion. As Live Action News previously explained:

Recent research from Ireland about the abortion pill showed 12% of women went to the ER for bleeding or infection. In addition, 16% suffered incomplete abortions.

This percentage corresponds with a recent U.S. insurance database analysis from the EPPC, showing a nearly 11% “serious adverse events” rate after taking the abortion pill.

Yet another study found that women were not prepared by the abortion industry for how painful the chemical abortion process would be. Known side effects of mifepristone are severe cramping, contractions, and heavy bleeding, as well as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headaches. Other risks include incomplete abortion, hemorrhage, infection, and death.

Raisner, however, as the founder of an abortion pill-promoting organization, likely has a financial motivation to promote mifepristone as easy, necessary, and safe.

The Bottom Line:

This is simply another example of how the predatory abortion industry exploits vulnerable populations, spreading lies and misinformation in an effort to make money from the desperation of women and from the deaths of countless preborn children.