40 pastors, members of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), sent a letter to President Donald Trump, asking him to restrict abortion doctors sending abortion pills across state lines into states with abortion bans. According to the letter, mail-order distribution of the abortion pill now makes up about 60% of all U.S. abortions. The signees warned the president of adverse effects the pill had had on women. An April report warned that women experiencing adverse effects from the abortion pill may be 22 times higher than is currently reported. Southern Seminary President Al Mohler said the underreporting is intentional. “[W]hat we now know is that the abortion rights movement was using a very small sample of outdated information and was pressing politically on the powers that be, especially after the Dobbs decision, to legalize medication abortion, the abortion pill, out of the declaration that the nation faced an abortion and health care emergency.”

They also noted that abortions had gone up since the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v Wade. The letter also decried Shield Laws, which enabled doctors in pro-abortion states to send pills to pro-life states without facing legal charges. ““Shield laws in pro-abortion states now protect providers who illegally ship mifepristone into prolife states, in direct violation of federal law,” the letter noted.

Signees urged the President to reinstated safety protocols the Biden administration had removed to make abortion access easier. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC) spoke with The Christian Post about what brought the letter about. “I’ve been talking about it with pastors. We drafted the letter for the pastors to take a look at, they agreed to it, and so that’s how it came about,” he said.

It’s an uphill battle, given that President Trump has stated he has no intentions to ban mifepristone, the drug in abortion pills. Perkins, however, said Trump must keep his prior promises of curtailing abortion. “If the president wants to be consistent with the statements he’s made” he said, “then the FDA needs to change its policy and the DOJ needs to enforce Comstock. You can’t have both. You can’t respect the right of states to protect the unborn, and allow abortion pills to be mailed into those states. Those are mutually exclusive.”

Comstock is an old law passed in 1873 which banned the mailing of abortion relation materials. It has largely remained dormant, but a recent lawsuit by a Texas man is accusing a California doctor of violating Comstock by sending abortion pills from California to Texas, where abortion is essentially banned. The man is accusing the doctor of murder after his girlfriend had two abortions from mail-order abortion pill. If the mailing of abortion pill was to be banned, it could drastically change the abortion landscape.