Life Advocacy Briefing

Virginia Ballots Cover Major Amendment Votes

VOTERS IN VIRGINIA will be going to the polls as early as Sept. 18 and will find on their ballots two propositions for which a “no” vote is enough impetus to vote, if nothing else.

Amendment 1, according to National Review’s Ed Whelan, “would protect a ‘fundamental right to reproductive freedom’” in the Virginia Constitution.  

Specifically, he writes, “Amendment 1 would make abortion freely available throughout the third trimester of pregnancy, all the way up to birth; abolish the right of parents to be consulted on – and to consent to – abortions sought by their young daughters, and enable anyone to perform an abortion and to escape legal responsibility for botching an abortion. Amendment 1 would also … enable a child, without [his or] her parents’ knowledge or consent, to receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sterilization surgery.  

“No voter will be made aware of any of this,” writes Mr. Whelan, “by the deceptive account of Amendment 1 that will appear on the ballot.”  

Also on the ballot will be proposed Constitutional Amendment 2, which would officially repeal the state constitution’s “existing prohibition on same-sex marriage,” reports the Royal Examiner, “and replace it with language establishing a constitutional right for two adults to marry regardless of sex, gender or race. … 

“The proposal would change language that has remained in Virginia’s Constitution since voters approved it in 2006,” notes the Royal Examiner. “Although that prohibition cannot currently be enforced because of federal constitutional law [?], voters are being asked whether it should be removed and replaced with an affirmative protection in Virginia’s own Bill of Rights.”

Marching for Life

PENNSYLVANIA PRO-LIFERS WILL BE MARCHING in Harrisburg, the state capital, on Monday, Sept. 21. The event is co-sponsored by Pennsylvania March for Life and the Pennsylvania Family Council. 

Details are available at the website pa.marchforlife.org.

Stateside

• THE 9^th CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HAS GRANTED TO IDAHO the right to continue enforcing its abortion ban while the appellate panel reviews the state’s appeal from an injunction by US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, who had blocked the state from enforcing its abortion ban while a lawsuit against it makes its way through the courts. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Sept. 22. Abortion advocates are circulating a petition, meanwhile, to put a “right” to abortion on the November ballot.

• THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MISSOURI, Catherine Hanaway, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “has launched a $167,000 ad campaign warning the public about the lack of safety standards for abortion facilities.” The campaign will coincide with a statewide referendum campaign proposing, notes Mr. Freiburger, “to remove a ‘right’ to abortion from Missouri’s constitution.” The abortion-rights amendment was narrowly adopted by voters in the 2024 election. That “right-to-abortion” amendment, he reports, “prohibits the legislature from banning abortion until ‘fetal viability’ and after ‘viability’ if an abortionist claims that killing a woman’s unborn child is deemed ‘needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.’” Yes, pregnant person.

• KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL Russell Coleman “is putting a pro-abortion group on notice,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “that they broke the law by flying a banner advertising illegal abortion pills above the Kentucky State Fair. Kentucky Today reports,” he writes, “that the New York-based Mayday Health commissioned a plan to fly over the Kentucky State Fair with a sky banner reading, ‘Abortion Pills by Mail,’ followed by the organization’s website, which links to a range of options for ordering the lethal drugs.” The attorney general filed suit against Mayday, reports Joshua Arnold for The Washington Stand, the following day. Another reason the federal government should be enforcing the Comstock Act, which bars the use of the US mail for shipment of abortion drugs and has been in effect since 1873. “‘These out-of-state activists are not only breaking Kentucky law,’” said A.G. Coleman, quoted by Mr. Arnold. “‘They seem to delight in rubbing our faces in it. … We refuse to allow Mayday to taint our values and put our people at risk.’”

• IN THE WAKE OF THEIR GOVERNOR’s SIGNING of a radical abortion law, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “Massachusetts Citizens for Life and Massachusetts Family Action have wasted no time in launching an effort to repeal the state’s radical new abortion law, hoping to put the question before voters in 2028. … The law,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “has sparked revulsion among conservatives, Chistians and even some Democrats, prompting [Gov. Maura] Healey to double down, insisting she is a ‘proud Catholic’ who ‘believes everyone is deserving of kindness and empathy, especially in their time of need.’” The new pro-life partnership, the “Compassionate Care Coalition,” must now, reports Mr. Freiburger, “collect at least 37,289 signatures by Oct. 23.” The proposal does not aim for an outright abortion ban but does seek to restore Massachusetts’ law, declaring, writes Mr. Freiburger, “‘Every person who contacted us wanted us to “do something” to restore protections for viable, fully formed babies.’”

Is This the Next Ploy?

Excerpt from support letter from Illinois Right to Life Action

             … The abortion lobby never stops. And neither can we. While we celebrate today’s victories, abortion advocates are already planning tomorrow’s attacks. In fact, one of Illinois’ leading abortion-rights legislators may have given us a glimpse of what is coming next. During House debate on April 8^th, Rep. Kelly Cassidy remarked that Abortion Pill Reversal “hasn’t been prohibited yet.” One word immediately caught our attention. YET. Her comment is a warning.

             … Starting now, we’re going on offense. We will not wait in the wings while Democrats scheme and plan their next attack on our state’s most vulnerable members. We’re getting ahead of them … when it comes to protecting Abortion Pill Reversal – a very basic dosage of progesterone that has saved more than 8,000 lives, according to the Abortion Pill Reversal Network, and gives women a rare chance to rewind their abortion decision. …

             Abortion Pill Reversal represents something extraordinary: Choice. Whereas abortion advocates insist that they’re all about giving women a choice, they’re opposed to choice when allowing women to wind back the clock on their abortions with Abortion Pill Reversal.

             We already know what they’re going to say; they’re going to argue that APR is unsafe and untested – that it’s not FDA-approved and is a rogue practice that shouldn’t be allowed by licensed physicians. What they won’t tell you is that APR is a very simple, commonsense practice that’s used to save pregnancies across the country every single day. Abortion Pill Reversal is … a dose of the hormone progesterone, which is produced by the woman’s body naturally in pregnancy and often given to mothers at risk of miscarriage. … Within 24-72 hours, a woman who has taken the first chemical abortion pill – mifepristone – but has not yet taken misoprostol (the pill that causes labor to occur) can begin a progesterone regimen. Since this technique for reversing chemical abortion was first used, thousands of babies have been saved from chemical abortion. And thousands of mothers have been spared the inevitable pain and suffering of delivering their dead unborn children at home. Alone. APR gives women the ultimate “choice” – even after they’ve begun the chemical abortion process …

Behind the Curtain

April 20, 2026, report by Suzanne Bowdey in The Washington Stand publication of Family Research Council – Note: This report is more lengthy than we normally publish, and for that reason, we had to delay until now. But we view it as too important for our readers to ignore.

             It’s the most lethal company no one’s ever heard of – and also, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) warns, the most secretive. If you asked most Americans what Danco Laboratories is or what it manufactures, only a handful of people would be able to identify it as one of the biggest producers of the abortion pill mifepristone. In fact, it’s the only drug that the company makes. And the reason you don’t know anything about it is because the leftist population control activists who started the business want it that way.

             A handful of years ago, the LosAngeles Times dug a little deeper into Danco, publishing a piece in 2023 that ticked off a list of suspicious things about the operation, including the fact that “it has fewer than 20 employees, uses a PO box to avoid sharing its headquarters address and isn’t listed on any public exchanges.” And yet, it’s the mastermind behind the largest industry of death in America today.

             “The company’s leadership decided long ago that they would keep its management and structure private due to security and harassment concerns,” Fiona Rutherford reported. “Danco doesn’t share information about its location to be ‘mindful of the safety, privacy and security of the people who work for the company, as well as anybody else who happens to be in the same building,’” the company’s director of Marketing & Public Affairs claimed in an interview with the Times.

             But “operating in obscurity isn’t straightforward,” Rutherford explained, pointing out how closely Danco worked with the FDA to keep its details hush-hush. “When it came to the 2000 approval of mifepristone, the agency took additional steps to protect the people involved. All of the documents related to the approval have been redacted so government employee names and manufacturer locations don’t become available to the public.” Even now, Danco refuses to disclose the name of its chief executive, board members or investors.

             And the backstory of the drug now responsible for as many as 70% of US abortions is just as troubling, the Times reveals. “Controversy has followed the abortion pill since it was developed in the 1980s by the French pharmaceutical company Roussel Uclaf. It would take years for the drug to be available to Americans,” Rutherford noted. “After pressure from advocacy groups and the Clinton Administration, the reproductive-health nonprofit Population Council secured the rights in 1994 to market the drug in the US. The Population Council then looked for a company to sell the pill, a search that ended when Danco was formed to distribute the medication.”

             But the cloak-and-dagger tactics raised more than a few eyebrows. “The FDA approval meeting was held in an obscure place in Maryland that looked like a garage, surrounded by security. ‘That tells you everything you need to know right there about what the hurdles were,’” former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt admitted at the time.

             That lack of transparency set off alarm bells that are still ringing today in the middle of the most explosive debate over abortion to hit the country in a generation – the widespread use of Danco’s extremely dangerous drug. Sen. Hawley, who’d been leading the effort to rein in mifepristone after thousands of reports of widespread harm to women, is also trying to get the Trump Administration’s attention about the shady business dealings that are driving an even shadier drug ring.

             In a letter to [then-]Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch, the Missouri Senator urges the Justice Dept. [DOJ] to open an investigation into Danco’s company policies, practices, approval process and compliance with federal law. “Very little information is publicly available about Danco Laboratories,” Hawley emphasized. “The company first introduced mifepristone into the United States in 2000 and, in doing so, appears to have taken unusual and extreme measures to protect itself from liability. It was incorporated in the Cayman Islands,” he notes. “Its board of directors and investors remain secret. And its corporate structure remains largely shielded from public view.”

             Hawley adds that the origins of the business aren’t exactly nonpartisan. “Early backers appear to have included George Soros and other far-left activists who favor population control. We do know, however, that chemical abortion is a lucrative enterprise for Danco – so lucrative, in fact, that mifepristone is the only drug the company makes, with investors’ returns reportedly topping 450%.” And yet, he notes, Danco is “profiting at the expense of women who have taken the drug and been seriously harmed by it. …

             “The largest study of mifepristone ever conducted found that nearly 11% of women who take the drug experience a ‘serious adverse health event,’ such as sepsis or hemorrhaging. That rate amounts to 22 times higher than what Danco admits to on its label,” the Senator stresses. “I recently hosted an event which featured firsthand testimonies of women who were harmed by the drug. These women deserve justice for what they suffered at the hands of this shady Big Pharma company.” He concludes by pressuring the DOJ to probe deeply into Danco, pointing out that his Senate subcommittee is doing the same.

             An agency spokesperson replied but made no promises that the department would explore Hawley’s request. “Pres. Trump’s record on protecting unborn life and defending women’s health is unmatched. The Dept. of Justice will continue to advance those priorities by asking courts to allow the FDA to complete its review of mifepristone safety data and by investigating any person or entity that engaged in illegal conduct putting women or unborn children at risk.”

             While a Louisiana judge put the brakes on a lawsuit over the abortion drug being mailed between states earlier this month, it didn’t stop the FDA from studying mifepristone’s effects – a process that most conservatives, including Hawley, aren’t convinced the administration has even started. To the Senator’s surprise, in a meeting with FDA leaders in February, the intense grassroots and congressional pressure still hasn’t translated into urgency on Commissioner Marty Makary’s behalf. [Commr. Makary has since resigned.] “I have asked repeatedly in public letters written to the FDA, ‘Have you started the study? When are you starting the study? When will it be done?’” [Sen. Hawley] told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins at the time. “I’ve gotten zero answers from them. Zilch. Zero. There’s been public reporting in the news that the FDA has not even started the study yet. … I don’t know that this is even underway.”

             And in the meantime, these drugs are flying off shelves, across state lines, and into pro-life areas with devastating effects. “When you’re talking about the drug mifepristone,” Hawley said to Perkins …, “[it] induces an abortion just by ingesting this particular pill, [which] is accountable for 70% now of abortions in the United States. The Biden Administration remove all of the safety protocols around this drug,” he reminded people. “We now know it is just inherently unsafe. It is inherently prone to abuse. And my view is we need to just ban it. Congress needs to ban this drug for use in abortion. It is a drug that causes the mother to go to the emergency room with life-threatening conditions in over 10% of cases – more than one in 10.” He paused before adding, “And, of course, it’s lethal to the child almost every time.” At the bare minimum, he implored, the Trump Administration needs to restore the “safety guardrails.”

             But frankly, Hawley will tell you, America is in a legitimate crisis. “There are more abortions now in the US than there were when Roe was still the law of the land. And if you live in a pro-life state, it doesn’t matter what your state law is. This abortion drug is being mailed into your state.” It was all part of Joe Biden’s plan to protect abortion-on-demand. “He wanted to make sure that no matter what the Supreme Court said, no matter what voters say, no matter what the state legislatures do, or Congress [does], abortion-on-demand would remain in America. And his tool for doing that was the abortion drug getting mailed into every city, every town, every state in the Union. We have got to put a stop to that.”

             And if pulling back the curtain on the dodgy manufacturer of a drug that’s hospitalizing thousands of women will help people see the evil behind this culture of death, so be it.

             Danco is an offshore company “incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Why?” the Senator asked rhetorically. “So that they could avoid scrutiny under our legal system. So they could avoid liability or our regulations. Their board of directors is secret. Their investors are secret. Their company protocol, profits and organization [are] all secret. This is outrageous. … And they make profits to the tune of billions of dollars a year. I want to know who’s funding it. I want to know who’s on their board. I want to know what laws they’re not complying with. We need a full-scale investigation of this abortion drug maker. This Big Pharma company is killing children. It is endangering the lives of women, and they’re getting rich off of it. That should not happen in the United States of America.”

Wisdom from America’s Pro-Life President

WE CONTINUE a morsel each week from a message written by Pres. Ronald Reagan and published in National Right to Life News on Oct. 11, 1984: The Unborn’s Transcendent Right to Life: A Personal Letter to the Pro-Life Movement from Pres. Ronald Reagan

Where are the new defenders of the family when it comes to the taking of innocent human life? And what have we heard from them while more than 15 million* unborn children – over 10 times more Americans than have been lost in all our nation’s wars – had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions?

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: The death toll cited by Pres. Reagan was cumulative as of 1984 and beginning with the 1973 nationwide legalization of abortion. The most recent statistic is for the year 2025 alone and is taken from Wikipedia’s abortion death toll entry, attributing the report to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute; several states no longer submit abortion toll reports to the federal Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), so we are unable to assess the death toll by official government data. The Wikipedia entry reads: “For 2025, Guttmacher reported 1,126,000 abortions, and an abortion rate of 16.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, a 16% increase from 2020.” This after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. If President Reagan was  disturbed by the abortion death toll he cited in 1984, should we not be all the more alarmed?