Pro-life watchdog group Operation Rescue released its 2024 Survey: American Abortion Facilities last week, highlighting trends in the abortion industry and concerns about how the industry’s ever-changing business plans are affecting women.
Decrease in brick-and-mortar facilities, increase in pill-only business
According to the report, virtual abortion pill-only businesses are on the rise, nearly tripling since last year from 20 virtual suppliers to 58. That’s a 190% increase in DIY abortion by mail, not including the number of brick-and-mortar abortion businesses that have added DIY abortion pills to their ‘services.’
Of the new abortion businesses that opened in 2024, 70% were pill-only.
Between 2023 and 2024, 20 existing abortion facilities stopped seeing women in person and changed their focus to the category of ‘virtual abortion pill supplier.’
Planned Parenthood, the abortion business that sells the most abortions in the United States, also moved towards “virtual back alley” abortion sales this year, according to Operation Rescue. It developed a new app called “PP Direct,” which offers abortion pills by mail in six states with no medical oversight.
“This trend of abortion clinics abandoning the concept of meeting with patients in person emphasizes the difficulty abortion facilities are experiencing retaining abortionists,” said the report. “It also draws attention to the allure of mail-order chemical abortion pills for profit-focused abortion centers, made more appealing by easier access and decreased operational costs.”
It also exposes how little abortion businesses care for the well-being of pregnant women and the lack of quality in the care they are willing to provide.
“Of 674 total clinics in 2024, 189 offered the option of abortion pills with no in-person visit or ultrasound, an increase of 4 clinics since 2023. Since 2022, when Operation Rescue first began tracking this data point, the number has more than doubled. Abortion clinics continue to jump on this dangerous, easy-profit bandwagon, knowing no agency will hold them accountable when women are injured or die,” said the report.
Financial benefit of abortion pill-only business
As the report indicates, there is a large financial incentive for abortion businesses to switch from in-person to virtual abortion sales. First, there is a presumptively large decrease in operational costs when moving from in-person to virtual in regard to staffing costs, and building-associated costs such as rent, electrical, heating, and the costs of medical equipment.
In addition to having the benefit of low overhead, abortion businesses that focus on pill-only and virtual abortion pill sales don’t charge much less for virtual abortion sales than they did for in-person ‘services.’ For example, Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business, charges $597 for in-person abortion pill dispensing and $538 for telemed abortion pill dispensing — a difference of just $59. According to the report, Planned Parenthood currently has 225 pill-only facilities and 163 surgical facilities.
While overhead costs decline with the switch to virtual only, the cost of the abortion pill via virtual abortion businesses has increased significantly over the last year from $237 to $402, a jump of nearly 70% — providing more profit and less cost to abortion facilities.
Plus, the average cost of virtual abortions at hybrid facilities is $487, with the cost at a high of $512 for a telemed abortion pill appointment and a low cost of $200 when there is no required telemed visit to gain access to the abortion pill.
“[T]hese ‘clinics’ are simple-to-implement cash cows for any abortionist with a prescription pad and domain name,” said Operation Rescue. And it’s due to the “radical, irresponsible deregulation of abortion pills.”
Deregulation of the abortion pill
The lifting of restrictions on the abortion pill began under the Obama administration and continued during the Biden-Harris administration.
In 2016, the Obama Administration FDA weakened the safety requirements (REMS) for mifepristone by removing requirements that women take the first drug in front of a clinician in person, at the location of a certified prescriber.
By December 2021, the Biden-Harris FDA further weakened the REMS safety requirements on mifepristone by removing the in-person dispensing requirement and allowing the abortion pill to be permanently shipped by mail.
The removal of these safety requirements put women at an increased risk of complications including incomplete abortion. Virtual abortion pill sales don’t require women to have an ultrasound to accurately determine gestational age, or any other testing to rule out ectopic pregnancy or other risk factors before receiving the abortion pill. An undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy could be fatal for the mother, and a failure to accurately assess gestational age could result in a higher chance of a failed or incomplete abortion, and more.
In fact, the report states that 64% of abortion businesses give the abortion pill to women known to be beyond the FDA’s approved 10-week limit. This increases the drug’s failure rate, raising the possibility of an incomplete chemical abortion.
“Most of these dangerous virtual ‘clinics’ ask women to provide little more than an ID and the answers to a few questions before providing the two-drug regimen for at-home, chemical abortions,” said the report. “Some will even provide the drugs to women who are not pregnant. Of course, these suppliers have no way of verifying whether the drugs will be used for nefarious purposes, like forcing another woman to unknowingly ingest abortion pills.”
With low overhead, high prices, and no need to deal with pesky pre-abortion pill testing or post-abortion pill follow-up, the message to women is clear: if they want in-person care regarding their abortion before, during, and after they take the abortion pill, they will have to pay more than double and hope they don’t fall victim to complications.
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:
Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
