WASHINGTON — National Right to Life (NRLC) announced the introduction of the APPLE Act — the Abortion Pill Provider Liability and Education Act — a new model law designed to protect women by ensuring honesty, transparency, and accountability in the use of abortion pills.

The APPLE Act responds to mounting evidence that women are not being fully informed about the risks of chemical abortions and are too often left without recourse when serious complications occur. The law empowers women and their families to hold abortion pill manufacturers, prescribers, and providers accountable for injuries, complications, trauma, or death — while preserving women’s privacy and dignity.

“The APPLE Act is about truth and accountability,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Women deserve full and honest information before taking abortion pills, and they deserve legal protection when something goes wrong.” 

Tobias continued, “If abortion pills are as safe as their promoters claim, then transparency and accountability should not be controversial.”

Recent data and firsthand accounts underscore the need for reform. According to the most recent FDA reporting, at least 36 women in the United States have died after taking mifepristone, with additional deaths reported internationally. Large-scale insurance and international studies have found that between nearly 5% and more than 10% of women who take abortion pills end up seeking emergency medical care, often for hemorrhage, infection, incomplete abortion, or other serious complications. Women’s own accounts describe prolonged bleeding, severe pain, psychological trauma, and emergency hospitalization.

The APPLE Act focuses on common sense protections rooted in long-standing principles of informed consent and patient safety. Among its key provisions, the APPLE Act:

• Requires abortion pill providers to give women clear, written information about known risks and potential complications, including excessive bleeding, infection, and incomplete abortion.
• Ensures women are told they may seek emergency medical care without fear of penalty for disclosing abortion pill use.
• Mandates the reporting of abortion pill complications to state agencies to create an accurate public record.
• Implements a public awareness campaign informing the public about a woman’s right to know about the risks associated with chemical abortion and the right to sue.
• Allows women or their families to pursue civil action when abortion pill providers or manufacturers cause harm or fail to obtain proper informed consent.
• Protects the anonymity of women who bring legal action.

For years, abortion pill advocates have dismissed women’s injuries and trauma as “rare” or “minor,” while opposing meaningful reporting requirements and legal accountability. The APPLE Act challenges that contradiction directly.

“The APPLE Act protects women’s right to know the truth and hold abortion-pill providers accountable,” Tobias said. “Women deserve the truth — and they deserve legal protection when abortion providers fail them.”

National Right to Life encourages state lawmakers to introduce and advance the APPLE Act as a woman-centered response to the growing harms associated with chemical abortions. NRLC will be working with state affiliates and legislators nationwide to promote the model law and educate the public about its protections.

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of affiliates in each of the 50 states, is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing yesterday under the leadership of Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) exposed how the Biden administration’s expansion of mail-order chemical abortion drugs is endangering women and undermining state laws designed to protect life.

“Yesterday’s hearing confirmed what we are seeing across the country: abortion drugs are being pushed on women with no meaningful medical oversight, no accountability, and no regard for state law,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Mail-order abortion is not health care. It is a reckless experiment that puts women at risk and leaves families to deal with the consequences.”

Tobias continued, “National Right to Life commends Senator Cassidy and the HELP Committee for bringing national attention to the dangers of chemical abortions.”

The hearing, titled “Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs,” featured testimony from Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, who detailed how federal policies have enabled widespread distribution of abortion pills—often into states with strong life-protective laws—despite clear prohibitions.

Testimony presented to the committee documented cases involving severe complications, lack of medical supervision, coercion, and deaths associated with abortion drugs. Witnesses explained how the removal of in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone has made enforcement of state law increasingly difficult while empowering out-of-state abortion providers operating behind so-called shield laws.

“Women deserve better than pills shipped through the mail with no physician oversight and no accountability when something goes wrong,” Tobias said. “We urge Congress to restore commonsense safeguards that protect women’s health and respect the authority of states to defend both mothers and their unborn children.”

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of affiliates in each of the 50 states, is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.