After the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago, the expectation, from both pro-life and pro-abortion sides, was that abortion numbers would decrease.

Council for Life has reported repeatedly about the proliferation of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone in the post-Roe era causing abortion numbers to go up in the U.S. and in our great state of Texas. (See Council for Life News HERE and HERE)

Last week, an official statement from The New York Times Editorial Board lamented the overturn of Roe, but acknowledged that abortion numbers have indeed increased nationwide, even in states like Texas with restrictive abortion bans. The NYT Editorial explains the reason for this “surprising outcome” is “that abortion pills have transformed the practice of reproductive medicine.”

Dearest Council for Life Friends, we need to be extremely alarmed by this Editorial.

(See New York Times Editorial HERE)

 

Chemical Abortion Pills — Mifepristone — have become the tragic game changer in our post-Roe era and now account for 60 – 80% of abortions in the U.S. and Texas

NYT Editorial Fears Access to Chemical Abortion Pills is in Danger; Cites “Threats” Causing their Fear

The New York Times Editorial is intended to be a dire warning and battle cry to abortion advocates. The Editorial begins by walking readers though concerns at the state and federal level to explain why “defenders of reproductive health and freedom will need to fight back.”

  • Blocking Interstate Mailing of Abortion Pills – Planned Parenthood, abortion doctors and other providers continue to sell chemical abortion pills through telehealth and online platforms. Pro-life states are taking legal and legislative action against abortion providers that mail pills illegally into their state circumventing their pro-life laws. Texas has been the most aggressive state with cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits and the recent passage of The Woman and Child Protection Act, serving as model legislation to the nation. (See Council for Life News HERE and HERE)

 

  • Legal Vulnerability of Shield Laws – Strong pro-life state laws like in Texas are being subverted because of Shield Laws in pro-abortion states protecting doctors and other pill providers from legal prosecution for the illegal trafficking of chemical abortion drugs. (See Council for Life News HERE) The Editorial acknowledges that these Shield Laws are vulnerable because usually “states help enforce one another’s laws, rather than the opposite, and a challenge to Shield Laws is likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court” which they note now commands a conservative majority.

 

  • President Trump’s Position that Individual States Should Establish their Own Abortion Policies – The Editorial claims President Trump’s position “leaves plenty of room for red states to crack down on abortion pills, threatening the reproductive freedom and well-being of women who live there.”

 

  • FDA Directive from HHS to Review the Safety of Mifepristone – In May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. directed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an agency of HHS, to review the safety of the abortion drug mifepristone. Secretary Kennedy described the findings from the most comprehensive ever study of mifepristone conducted by the Ethics and Public Policy Center of the serious dangers to women “alarming”. (See Council for Life News HERE)

 

  • Joint Letter from Attorneys General to HHS and FDA and Their Response – A Joint Letter dated July 31, 2025, from 22 Attorneys General called on HHS and the FDA to reinstate safeguards for the abortion pill that were dismantled by the Obama and Biden administrations and to pull mifepristone from the market until completion of their mifepristone review. Secretary Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary responded with a letter dated September 19, 2025, that provided an update on their mifepristone review, cited the EPPC Study and reinforced HHS and FDA’s commitment “to protecting the health and safety of pregnant women.” (See Joint Attorneys General Letter HERE and HHS and FDA Response Letter HERE)

 

  • Defunding Planned Parenthood – The historic passage in July by the U.S. Congress to defund Planned Parenthood from receiving hundreds of millions of Federal taxpayer funded Medicaid payments has forced the closures of Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation. (See Council for Life News HERE and HERE)

NYT Editorial Proposes Radical Sweeping Federal Law to Make Abortion Legal in all 50 States

After spelling out the “threats to the pills’ availability”, the Editorial proceeds to present a radical, highly disturbing idea to protect abortion access with a national abortion law. As described by President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Dr. Albert Mohler, this law would be “an outright call for federal legislation ensuring abortion rights in every state” and “an egregious assault upon the dignity and sanctity of human life.”

 

The reference to SCOTUS allowing “burdensome” restrictions in the 1990s is to the Casey decision that allowed some meaningful restriction on abortion at the state level. The extreme federal law being proposed would remove both the Dobbs and Casey rulings, effectively allowing abortion without any restriction in all 50 states.

The Editorial goes on to say that this national abortion law should also repeal the Comstock Act, an 1873 Federal law that criminalizes the mailing of any item used for abortion (See Council for Life News HERE), and fund “high-quality” sex education and birth control. “Ultimately, ‘reproductive health care’ should be integrated into mainstream medicine.”

The Editorial also makes abundantly clear that not only should abortion be legal in all 50 states, but abortion should also be publicly funded like in “nearly every other high-income country in the world, including European countries with large Catholic populations.” We are currently seeing the Democrat party’s commitment to the taxpayer funding of abortion play out on the national stage as Congress emerges from the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. As pointed out yesterday by The Washington Post, Congress will be negotiating before year end whether the extension of the Obama era Affordable Care Act should subsidize abortion.

(Read HERE or Listen BELOW to Dr. Albert Mohler’s The Briefing and see Washington Post article HERE)

“An outright call for federal legislation ensuring abortion rights in every state” and “an egregious assault upon the dignity and sanctity of human life.”  — Dr. Albert Mohler

Please Pray

Friends, the New York Times Editorial is sending an unequivocal, ominous warning. The timing last week of their proposition for a federal abortion law right after election day and leading into the November 2026 elections is certainly strategic in a crafty, sinister way. Our complacency would be a mistake.

We must feel an urgency to take action and to pray and implore that our U.S. and State Government leaders and agency officials and the Church stand boldly and courageously to defend unborn life.

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