Are online abortion pill dispensaries modern day back-alley abortion facilities?

The marketing strategy initially sold by the abortion lobby decades ago was that abortion was necessary but should be rare. Since that time, it has become increasingly clear that the new agenda is abortion on demand, and this can be seen clearly in efforts to relax safeguards surrounding use of the abortion pill with little regard for the safety of women.

Online, there has been a recent explosion of abortion pill dispensaries, with philosophies that better resemble back-alley abortion facilities than actual health care. Currently, there are no laws that specifically regulate virtual abortion pill dispensaries like brick-and-mortar abortion facilities, and for that reason, women should be extremely cautious.

The latest online site to emerge to take advantage of a temporary change by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowing the dispensing of the abortion pill by mail under the guise of COVID-19 pandemic is ironically named Abortion on Demand (AOD). A previous Live Action News report detailed a number of other unregulated virtual abortion pill dispensaries which popped up all over the country seemingly overnight.

Despite working in partnership with the National Abortion Federation (NAF), Abortion Care Network (ACN) and others, AOD fails to publish critical information to enhance safety for women. In addition, “[t]here is no office for this online abortion business, whose mailing address is a UPS Store in Seattle, Washington,” states AbortionDocs.org.

AOD’s founder, Dr. Jamie Phifer, admitted the company name is “provocative.” She told Marie Claire that AOD will initially launch in 20 states and Washington, D.C., but indicated the group had plans to expand. According to its website, the stated goal of AOD is clear: “Abortion by mail on a massive scale.”

Research published at AbortionDocs.org reveals Phifer is licensed in several states and once worked at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center abortion facility in New Jersey, an abortion center associated with a number of abortion injuries and health violations. Vitals reveals that Phifer also worked at abortion facilities in Florida (A Womans Choice Inc in Jacksonville) as well as the Hartford Gyn Center, an abortion chain in several states including New Jersey.

A clandestine structure

The AOD site lacks critical information such as a physical location, phone number, or list of medical personnel, despite claiming the group consists of “a resourceful team.” This appears to be by design to keep their work from being traceable. But the clandestine structure makes AOD appear more like a back-alley abortion facility than a health care website.

“All of our correspondence with patients doesn’t have the word abortion in it, it just says “AOD,” Phifer told Marie Claire. “The packaging says AOD. Credit card billing has the name of our LLC on it, so it wouldn’t be traceable at all,” Phifer admitted.

The website tells potential clients, “Abortion can definitely be uncomfortable. Medication abortion mimics a natural miscarriage…”

While AOD claims to have a “board-certified physician available,” the website fails to name this professional and includes no phone numbers for clients to call in case of an emergency. Instead, AOD instructs clients to contact their “24/7 call center” located in their packet or email.

“If you are having a serious medical emergency you should call 911,” AOD also states.

READ: An OB/GYN speaks: The ‘no-test’ abortion pill protocol experiments with women’s health

Safer than Tylenol?

Phifer’s view of chemical abortion is cavalier. Then again, there are big profits to be made from abortion pill sales, estimated to gross $200 million annually.

“I frankly think medication abortion should be over the counter — it’s actually safer than Tylenol,” Phifer claimed. This claim has been made by others, including former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards — but just because a claim is widespread doesn’t make it true.

The fact is that data on the number of abortion complications in the U.S. is sketchy at best, largely because there are no federal requirements requiring abortion complications to be reported. In addition, despite thousands of adverse events and deaths reported due to the abortion pill (mifepristone), changes made by the FDA in 2016 no longer require abortion pill manufacturer Danco to report non-fatal adverse effects, so the true complication numbers are not known.

A recent analysis of adverse events reports (AERs) submitted to the FDA by Danco revealed that abortion pill clients experiencing complications are more likely to receive care from emergency centers than from abortion facilities where they obtained the pills. For that reason, many abortion groups advise women to claim they are experiencing a miscarriage instead of an abortion, which muddies the number of complications to an even greater degree.

The process, minors, and cost

According to AOD, “Some states have strict rules about minors getting abortions. There are also federal rules about how old you must be to consent for our payment platform,” the AOD site explains. Therefore, AOD only accepts “clients who are 18 years” and up to 56 days’ gestation.

How will AOD confirm this? “We do ask for a photo ID in the video portion of the visit; the ID doesn’t have to match the state they say they’re in, it just has to confirm their age,” Phifer added.

To get around state laws that ban telemedicine abortion, the website instructs patients, “No, you do not have to be a resident of the state you select. The law applies to where you are physically located in a given moment regardless of where you live. You must however be in the state you select at the time of your scheduled video appointment and to accept your medication abortion packet in the mail.”

“The whole process, from deciding that you want to proceed and getting your medication, should be between two and a half to five days, depending on where you are,” Phifer claimed.

Although the cost of abortion pills averages under $100, Phifer plans to sell them for $239, which she claimed was “about $300 less than the average price of ending a pregnancy” at a brick-and-mortar abortion facility.

Women should be warned that AOD charges the full price up front. If a woman cancels at the last-minute, Phifer keeps a part of their payment to donate to ACN’s Keep Our Clinics fund. AOD claims this is to thwart pro-lifers from reviewing their online process.

This begs the question: what are they afraid pro-lifers might discover?

Editor’s Note: If you have taken the abortion pill (mifepristone) very recently and have changed your mind, please contact Abortion Pill Rescue for help.

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