The new wave of Roe-bots and abortion chatbots has just begun.
Yesterday, pro-abortion protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court while the oral arguments for FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine were heard within.
Pink hats, keffiyehs, and blue hair could be seen adorning the protesters — mostly women. Signs rooted for “mife & miso” — a shortened form of the mifepristone and misoprostol regimen used in chemical abortions. Orwellian robots scooted around, distributing abortifacient pills like candy from a PEZ dispenser. The wheeled bots were brought by AidAccess.org, a “telemedical abortion service providing abortion pills in all 50 states.”
The machines, dubbed “Roe-bots” by Aid Access, are not just for show. They are part of a new initiative by Aid Access — in collaboration with other pro-abortion groups Women on Waves, Abortion Access Front, and Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine — to remotely distribute abortion pills in states with abortion bans or limits.
According to Aid Access, “the abortion robots will be operated remotely from within shield law states, where legal protection safeguards abortion providers against punitive measures.” Ostensibly, the bots are meant to deliver abortion pills to the doors of the women who ordered them — the logistics on how this might be accomplished, however, remain unclear.
The “Roe-bots” are merely the latest addition to the Brave New World of pro-abortion activism. They are predated by the abortion bot, Charley — an AI chatbot, launched last year, which is designed to connect women across the U.S. to abortion services. As Charley says, “Need an abortion? Let’s get started. “
Unsurprisingly, the team behind Charley is full of former Planned Parenthood executives. The list includes Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood; Kaori Sueyoshi, who served as Planned Parenthood’s director of innovation; Lillian Tomayo, the former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida; Nicole Cushman, the former director of education for Planned Parenthood; and Tom Subak, who previously led Planned Parenthood’s digital department. Planned Parenthood stands to gain financially from a tool — used by women everywhere — that connects potential customers to its services.
I interacted with Charley a few different times to see what advice the bot would give me. I was particularly interested to find out its advice on abortion pills, given the latest Supreme Court case and the serious adverse effects that mifepristone and misoprostol can cause — especially if taken late in a pregnancy or for an ectopic pregnancy.
The results were nothing short of horrifying. Without a doubt, Charley’s most malicious feature is its language surrounding abortion pills.
To start off, the bot asked me: English or Español? With that sorted, Charley stated its purpose:
There are two main types of abortion: abortion pills and abortion procedures. Both are generally very safe and effective for ending a pregnancy. I can help you choose which type of abortion and how to get care.
(“Generally very safe and effective” deserves calls for some major asterisks, but I digress.)
Charley went on to say, “If you already know which type of abortion you’re interested in (“Pills” or “Procedure”), choose it below.”
I clicked “Pills,” and Charley then asked if I knew the first day of my last period — a question meant to determine the gestational age of the fetus. Gestational age, unlike conceptional age, is not determined by the time of conception — but refers to the length of pregnancy after the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period. (Gestational age is the metric most commonly used in clinical settings.)
When I told Charley that I was 23 weeks pregnant (just shy of six months), the bot told me I might be too far along for abortion pills, as “abortion pills work best in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.” Currently, the loosened FDA restrictions limit the use of abortion pills at ten weeks gestational age. Charley didn’t seem to know or care that taking abortion pills at six months gestational age is extremely dangerous.
Charley then mentioned that an abortion procedure is another great option, but never once did the bot tell me not to use abortion pills with any force or decidedness.
Charley gave me the option to compare the procedure to pills, with the watered-down warning that “using abortion pills can be more painful and less effective this far along in the pregnancy. The risk of medical complications also goes up the longer you are pregnant. Many providers only offer pills up to 10 or 12 weeks.” Nonetheless, Charley proceeded to present pills as a viable option and describe how they work and how to acquire them.
You can use abortion pills wherever you want and at any time of day or night.
Getting the pills by mail is usually cheaper ($25-$470) than picking them up from a clinic ($500-$600). These prices can change, based on when and where you get them. You may be able to get help paying for pills from an abortion fund, and some providers may offer lower prices, if you need it.
Finally, Charley mentioned some of the milder side effects of abortion pills:
Everyone’s body is different, but after taking the pills it’s normal to have pain, nausea, diarrhea, low-grade fever, or vomiting. You may not have any symptoms, but if you do, they should get better around 24 hours after taking misoprostol. You may be able to get pain medication from the clinic, or you can take ibuprofen.
Someone needs to tell Charley that a woman who takes mifepristone and misoprostol at six months gestational age is going to need a lot more than ibuprofen. A woman who takes abortion pills late in her pregnancy — anytime after two months — could land in the emergency room for extensive bleeding, sepsis, or worse. The FDA’s own label for abortion pills says that approximately one in 25 women who take the drugs will end up in the emergency room. That likelihood increases with gestational age. Among women who take abortion pills after 84 days of gestation, nearly 40 percent will require follow-up surgery, and 4 percent will sustain significant infection.
Charley’s advice could place ER doctors in the awful position of having to complete a patient’s botched, self-administered chemical abortion by removing either a still-living fetus from the woman’s womb — an environment made unalterably toxic by the pills — or whatever is left of the dead fetus.
This exact scenario is what the plaintiffs in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine experienced — ER doctors who have had to deal with the bloody aftermath of botched mifepristone intakes. The doctors, in particular Dr. Ingrid Skop and Dr. Christina Francis, submitted declarations describing times they or a partner had to surgically “finish” an abortion, in the ER, for women who had ingested abortion pills.
As described by Grazie Pozo Christie, M.D., in National Review, the self-reporting model of a woman’s last period, praised by the FDA’s lawyer and utilized by Charley to determine gestational age, is highly untrustworthy. Anywhere from “10 to 45 percent of women cannot provice an accurate date of their last period.” Additional studies have shown that, “even when women say they are certain of their dates, almost 20 percent turn out to be wrong.”
Among women who have had a chemical abortion, nearly 12 percent “were actually ineligible because of advanced fetal age and size.” The FDA knows this. An ultrasound is the only sure way to determine the gestational age of a pregnancy — which is why an ultrasound was originally required by the FDA (before the restrictions were loosened in 2016) in order for mifepristone to be prescribed. As Dr. Christie said, “By making mifepristone a ‘do it yourself’ proposition, the agency has abandoned its duty to protect the health and safety of girls and women.”
As with the FDA, so too with Charley the abortion chatbot.
While the Dobbs decision enabled states to place limits on abortion, it also energized a pro-abortion storm. The new wave of Roe-bots and abortion chatbots has just begun. For those on the side of human dignity: Welcome to hell.