Freshman Congressman Mark Harris, NC-08, introduced his first bill in Congress last week, the Teleabortion Prevention Act. This bill would make it a federal offense for doctors to send abortion drugs to women through the mail or provide them with the abortion drug, mifepristone, without a physical exam.

“We live in a country where getting an abortion is as easy as walking to your mailbox. Under the radical Biden administration, the chemical abortion industry exploded so that women can now go online and order pills to perform an abortion alone in their homes without any medical supervision,” said Harris. 

The FDA recommends mifepristone only be used during the first ten weeks of pregnancy.  However, an in-person ultrasound is used to determine gestational age and can determine whether a woman has an ectopic pregnancy. The drug could result in death if taken with an ectopic pregnancy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more providers turned to telemedicine to prescribe mifepristone and a subsequent study found that of those patients, .7% requiring hospitalization and .4% requiring a blood transfusion. Of the more than 1,000 cases studied there were 70 unplanned visits to emergency rooms, and ten “serious adverse events” including five blood transfusions.

“We applaud Rep. Mark Harris for introducing the Teleabortion Prevention Act in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of NC Values, told the Carolina Journal. “Abortion-by-mail is a major problem in North Carolina.” 

He also introduced his legislation on the same day as the 52nd annual March for Life in Washington, DC. Thousands attended this annual event, which has been held every year since 1974, according to the Hill.

“Now the task of our movement is to protect innocent life. It’s to defend the unborn and it’s also to be pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word possible,” said VP J.D. Vance in his remarks, at the March for Life. “We failed a generation not only by permitting a culture of abortion on demand but also by neglecting to help young parents achieve the ingredients they need to [live] a happy and meaningful life. A culture of radical individualism took root, one where the responsibilities and joys of family life were seen as obstacles to overcome, not as personal fulfillment or personal blessings. Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another, is a core part of living in a society to begin with.”

Screenshot from pg 2 of Teleabortion Prevention Act.

“Any healthcare provider who in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, who knowingly provides or attempts to provide a chemical abortion without physically examining the patient; without being physically present at the location of the chemical abortion; and without scheduling a follow-up visit for the patient to occur not more than 14 days after the administration or use of the drug, to assess the patient’s physical condition, shall be fined more than  $1,000 or imprisoned not more than 2 years or both.” 

The Teleabortion Prevention Act

“The Teleabortion Prevention Act would make it a federal offense for abortion providers to send these dangerous pills to women without providing in-person care before, during, and after an abortion,” concluded Harris. “We know abortion is always deadly for the child, and as we work to end all abortion we cannot allow our healthcare system to prey on mothers too.”

This is not the first piece of abortion-related legislation introduced in the 119th Congress by a federal lawmaker representing NC. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, also introduced the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act recently.

“Now yesterday, President Trump issued a strong endorsement of the Born-Alive Abortion Act, ensuring that those babies who survived botched abortions enjoy the equal protection under law, which is the obligation of every citizen to enjoy in this country,” continued Vance. 

Additionally, Trump signed an executive order on Friday rescinding two executive orders issued by the Biden Administration that the Trump White House says violate the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from paying for abortions.  Additionally, Trump signed a memorandum that reinstates the Mexico City Policy, stopping taxpayer dollars from funding overseas abortions. The Mexico City Policy was announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, rescinded under the Clinton administration in 1993, and reinstated again by President George W. Bush in 2001. Both Clinton and Bush respectively rescinded and restored the policy on January 22nd of their inaugural year, making it one of their first acts as President of the United States. Now Trump has followed suit, restoring the policy on January 24, just four days after his swearing-in.

This issue made headlines following the death of Amber Thurman, the Georgia woman who received abortion drugs in North Carolina but did not receive appropriate aftercare, which is required in this legislation. It would have also been required under North Carolina’s SB 20, the Care for Women, Children and Families Act, before those requirements were removed prior to the bill’s passage in 2023. Thurman passed away in August of 2022 due to complications from taking abortion drugs. 

“The abortion industry itself reports that 2,000 abortions a month are occurring in North Carolina due to abortion pills that are being illegally shipped into our state under ‘shield laws’ in blue states, despite the fact that neither telehealth abortions nor shipping abortion pills in the mail are legal here,” continued Fitzgerald. “Self-managed abortions without a doctor’s direct examination are dangerous not only to babies but to their mothers as well. Abortion activists are disregarding the law to advance their agenda of abortion on demand at any time for any reason.”