Victim of coerced abortion suing FDA: Baby would be alive if not for mail-order abortion

Louisiana resident Rosalie Markezich, one of the plaintiffs in an abortion pill lawsuit filed earlier this month against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), says that "mail-order abortion" led to a situation in which she was coerced by her then-boyfriend into taking abortion drugs that ended her preborn child's life.

Markezich's boyfriend had obtained the abortion pill regimen by mail from a doctor in California.

Key Takeaways:

• Plaintiff in an abortion pill lawsuit against the FDA, Rosalie Markezich, says she was coerced into taking the abortion pill in 2023 after her then-boyfriend was able to obtain it by mail-order.

• Markezich said her boyfriend "snapped" and she was afraid of him, so she gave in to his demand to take the drug, but planned to vomit it up immediately after. However, she was unsuccessful.

• She grieves the loss of her child and says that if an in-person visit was required for a woman to get the abortion pill, she would have been able to tell the doctor that she was being coerced, and her baby would be alive today.

The Details:

The lawsuit against the FDA states:

In October 2023, under immense pressure and fearing for her safety, Rosalie took abortion drugs that her boyfriend obtained via the U.S. Postal Service from a doctor in California. Rosalie did not want to have an abortion. But far from empowering Rosalie to make her own choice and preserving her autonomy, mail-order abortion drugs had Rosalie feeling trapped and terrified. She grieves the loss of her child and endures lasting emotional trauma.

But for FDA’s 2023 REMS, Rosalie would have received the protection of a private in-person medical appointment. And if she had been able to tell a doctor that she did not want an abortion, the drugs that took her baby’s life would never have been provided.

The lawsuit notes that "some of the women who ingest the drugs do not want an abortion. Since FDA effectively allowed 'blind' dispensing without the in-person care of a doctor, bad actors have been able to obtain FDA-approved abortion drugs from prescribers in other states and then secretly spike women’s drinks without their knowledge or force women into taking these drugs against their will.. This is what happened to Rosalie Markezich."

In a YouTube video, Markezich explained, "If mail-order abortion wasn't a thing, I'm 100% sure I would have my child."

Rosalie's Heartbreaking Story

Rosalie said she discovered she was pregnant in October of 2023, smiling when she saw the positive results. The next week, she decided to tell her then-boyfriend, claiming that it "seemed like we were on the same page."

Then, "all of a sudden it was just like a 180 — flip of a switch," she alleged. "He told me that he actually did not want to keep the child. And, so I told him that I do. And I don't want to get rid of my baby," she said tearfully. "I kept standing my ground — I WANT TO KEEP IT."

But then, she said, "... he snapped — raised his voice, so I was scared. And I felt pressured to take the pills. So I did. My plan was to immediately go and throw them up." But she was unable to vomit up the drugs.

"The blood started coming and at that moment I knew my chances were not in my favor," she said. "And so I just laid there...bleeding...crying. My situation would have been different if I went to the doctor. I don't believe the doctor would give me pills if I told them I didn't want them. I didn't stop bleeding for over a week."

Rosalie, who works with children, then broke into tears and shared her grief about how she would never be able to hold or love "my baby."

"I felt pressured to take the pills" | Rosalie's Story

Did the FDA know its changes would increase risks to women?

The lawsuit makes the claim that the FDA may have known that the changes it made to the safety guidelines of the abortion pill could ultimately increase the risks to women. The lawsuit references several studies that showed higher risks than the label for mifepristone currently reports:

FDA reviewed three studies for “mail order pharmacy dispensing.” One (Hyland) alarmingly reported that 3% of the participants needed to be hospitalized—a 330% increase over the rate on the approved label... FDA disregarded this dramatic increase, saying it could not make any “conclusions about [that study’s] safety findings.”

Another study (Upadhyay) had “numerous deviations” from abortion practices in the United States, “limited follow-up information, and small sample size”—all of which “limit[ed] [its] usefulness.”

And a third study, an “interim analysis” (Grossman), was largely irrelevant because it evaluated outcomes for “dispens[ing] by mail-order pharmacy after in-person clinical assessment.”

But those three weren't the only ones. The lawsuit says, "FDA also cited five studies that “evaluated clinic dispensing by mail.”

• Raymond: "7% of participants 'had clinical encounters in [emergency department (ED)] and urgent care centers.'”

• Chong: “6[%]... had unplanned clinical encounters in ED/urgent care,” and “[s]urgical interventions were required in 4.1[%] to complete abortion.”

• Anger: "12.5% 'had an unplanned clinical encounter.'"

• Kerestes: "5.8% in the 'telemedicine [plus] mail group' had 'ED visits,' a rate exceeding the range on the label (2.9% to 4.6%) and almost three times higher than the 2.1% for women who had an 'inperson' visit."

• Aiken: "[H]ad 'limitations' because 'investigators were unable to verify the outcomes' and 'the study’s design did not capture all serious safety outcomes.'"

In addition, the study says:

FDA conceded that “the literature suggests there may be more frequent ED/urgent care visits related to the use of mifepristone when dispensed by mail from the clinic[.]”

The agency similarly acknowledged that the Anger study “suggests a pre-abortion examination may decrease the occurrence of procedural intervention and decrease the number of unplanned visits for postabortion care."

Yet, despite all of this evidence against mail-order abortion pills, the FDA "concluded that, while the studies 'suggest more frequent encounters with healthcare providers, they generally support a conclusion that dispensing by mail is safe' and that mifepristone would 'remain safe and effective for medical abortion if the in-person dispensing requirement is removed[.]' And '[w]ith the removal of the in-person dispensing requirement,' mifepristone is 'no longer required to be dispensed only in a clinic, medical office or hospital," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also addresses concerns previously documented at Live Action News, exposing the FDA's removal of instructions advising abortion clients to take mifepristone's medication guide with them should they visit emergency rooms. This may be deliberate, given Big Abortion's ongoing scheme to bury abortion pill complications by advising women to bypass the required reporters of adverse events and lie when presenting directly to the ER.

The Backstory:

In 2023, the Biden administration directed the FDA to permanently remove the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, the abortion pill, from its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the law group representing Markezich and the State of Louisiana:

This action opened the door for out-of-state pro-abortion activists and doctors to blanket states like Louisiana, which has chosen to protect unborn children, with mail-order abortion drugs, thus evading state laws and putting unborn babies and women at serious risk.

Mailing abortion pills breaks the federal Comstock Act, which restricts the shipping or mailing of abortion drugs but has not been enforced.

On October 6, ADF filed a federal lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, hoping to reestablish a previous policy mandating the abortion pill to be distributed in person and criticizing the Biden FDA’s 2023 permanent removal of the requirement for in-person dispensing “for clearly political reasons.”

Victim of coerced abortion suing FDA: Baby would be alive if not for mail-order abortion

Shortly after Dobbs, pro-abortion activists and doctors launched a nationwide effort to effectuate abortions in pro-life states like Louisiana—all without setting foot in those states. How? By mail. Every year, doctors and activists in states like California and New York mail a[n FDA)-approved abortion drug called mifepristone to thousands of Louisiana residents for the express purpose of causing abortions in Louisiana that are blatantly unlawful.

This extra-territorial mailing of abortion drugs is illegal under state law—and it is the direct result of the Biden Administration’s 2023 agency action expressly facilitating this scheme. That action is the subject of this lawsuit.

In September, Louisiana's motion to join the existing abortion pill lawsuit was denied and that same month, the state re-filed the lawsuit in the Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette Division.

Choice has been the mantra with abortion, but under the mail-order abortion pill scheme, few abortionists seem concerned when abortion pills are ordered by men who use them to force abortions upon unsuspecting women. These abortionists are then shielded by pro-abortion state laws.

In addition, the manufacturers charged with policing prescribers, namely Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro, and possibly the most recently-approved generic manufacturer, Evita Solutions LLC, are not decertifying bad actors and are instead enabling them to disregard safety and the law for profit.

The Bottom Line:

"Removing the only in-person visit makes already high-risk abortion drugs even riskier for women. It even makes it more difficult to identify reproductive coercion and assault because ill-intentioned individuals can now obtain these drugs without a woman’s knowledge or consent," said ADF. "These injuries are the result of regulatory actions that the FDA itself admits were unsupported by the available scientific evidence."