Washington: A bipartisan group of 117 lawmakers has urged the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to crack down on companies, primarily based in Europe, that ship chemical abortion drugs from India to the US. These European companies, like Aid Access, are circumventing the FDA's safety requirements and placing the lives of women and their children at risk, the lawmakers said in a letter to Norman Sharpless, the Acting FDA Commissioner. In the letter dated May 10, the bipartisan group of Congressmen urged Sharpless to crack down on Aid Access and Rablon, two foreign companies known to distribute Mifeprex, a chemical abortion drug, by mail-order to US customers in violation of the FDA's safety protocols.

The letter urges Sharpless to take action to stop the illegal practices of Aid Access and other mail-order abortion providers. Aid Access allows chemical abortion pills to be prescribed by an abortionist in the Netherlands, filled by a pharmacy in India and shipped to stateside customers, they alleged. "As the FDA has recognised, by shipping chemical abortion drugs from India to the United States, Aid Access circumvents the Food and Drug Administration's safety requirements, placing the lives of women and their children at risk," the letter said. "We would like to...voice our support for ongoing oversight of this and any other rogue mail-order abortion operation," wrote the lawmakers. Mifeprex is an oral drug that blocks the progesterone hormone necessary for a pregnancy to continue. It is used with Misprostol to end early pregnancies.