Aug. 4, 2022 — Many women seeking abortion pills online have unknowingly been ordering the pills from one of many fake clinics making false claims, pharmacy experts report.
While some online sites are licensed and legitimately connect consumers with the pills, the illegal sites may sell either counterfeit or expired pills or deliver no pills and just steal payment information. Al Carter, PharmD, executive director of the nonprofit National Association of Boards of Pharmacy says that since the the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June, there has been an increase in his team’s discovery of illegal online sites selling what they claim are abortion medications.
“Ninety-six percent of the online pharmacies out there are illegitimate,” he says. “They’re violating some type of state or federal law in almost every incidence.”
The court ruled that individual states could ban abortion procedures. The resulting patchwork of laws and access barriers have made conditions ripe for a growing black market online for mifepristone and misoprostol, two drugs used in combination to induce abortions.
Interest in the drugs soared after the Supreme Court ruling was leaked in May.
Within 3 days of the leak, online searches for abortion medications jumped 162% compared with the 3 days before the ruling, according to a report in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Red Flags
Among red flags that an abortion-pill website is fraudulent, Carter says, are that the site doesn’t ask for a…
