Inside the Secretive Network of Abortion Pill Vigilantes

Denny spends many of their days sitting on their bed packing small pills into plastic ziplock bags, and then into brown envelopes, ready to be mailed out to people seeking abortion medications in states like Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

The pills are mifepristone and misoprostol—two medications that are the subject of intense political and legal debate.

Every package of pills Denny mails out puts them in danger. But they won’t stop doing it.

“A legal gray area is kind of where we live,” Denny, who works with the group WeSaveUs and uses they/them pronouns, told The Daily Beast. “What’s legal and what’s right are two different things.”

When Roe fell last June, protesters took to the streets in their thousands, some with placards and T-shirts that promised to “aid and abet abortion.”

Almost a year later, a small group of committed activists have built secretive support networks to do just that. Denny is one of a handful of activists in states with highly restrictive bans who are distributing abortion medication, and risking prosecution everyday.

Denny, who identifies as non-binary, lives in Louisville, Kentucky, a progressive urban dot in a deeply red state. (The Daily Beast is only using their first name due to their concerns about prosecution.)

Kentucky’s trigger ban went into effect immediately after Roe v. Wade was overturned, banning abortion entirely in the state, with very few exceptions. Overnight, Kentucky became one of the most restrictive abortion states in the nation.

Denny knew they had to take action. They’d been involved in activism around reproductive rights, and had always been guided by the principle of bodily autonomy.

“It is about: What do you want and need? What will make you feel safe? If what will make them feel safe is getting out of state to a clinic, I’ll help them. If what will make them feel safe is taking pills at home, I’ll help them. Everyone deserves care,” Denny told The Daily Beast.

Despite the new legally precarious environment, Denny started working with WeSaveUs last fall. Since then anti-abortion activists have targeted abortion medication, filing lawsuits against the FDA and protesting outside pharmacies, making Denny’s work even more risky.

Denny’s bedroom is the end of a long covert network that begins thousands of miles away.

Smuggling medication from Mexico

The underground network begins with activists like Verónica Cruz Sánchez, the founder and executive director of Las Libres, a feminist organization founded in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 2000. For two decades, Cruz and her colleagues have worked to distribute the abortion medication misoprostol across Mexico.

“Abortion has always existed, it will always exist. It will not cease to exist. Even if countries restrict it, even if territories restrict it, that does not mean that it stops abortion—it only puts people’s lives and health at risk,” Cruz says of the philosophy of Las Libres, which provides the medication for free.

When the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 8 in 2021, radically restricting access to abortion in the state, Cruz turned her eyes north to the United States. Mexico’s Supreme Court had just ruled that it was unconstitutional to punish abortion as a crime, a hugely progressive step in a once staunchly conservative country. While Mexico appeared to be taking a step forward, Cruz says, she could see the United States moving in the opposite direction.

“We decided to form a cross-border network,” Cruz told The Daily Beast. Abortion pills are available over the counter in Mexico. Cruz organized hundreds of volunteers to take abortion pills over the border, initially to Texas, and then, when Roe fell, to other hostile states. Some are older expat American women who have made their homes in Mexico, and are sometimes nicknamed “the Old Hippies.”

Cruz is careful to protect the identities of the activists involved in smuggling pills over the border or how they do it. The people who take the pills over the border don’t know exactly where they come from, or who they are going to, Cruz says, which keeps each node in the network more secure.

“Nobody knows, in general terms, the woman who is having an abortion. She doesn’t know all the people involved so she has a safe abortion. And people who are helping her do not know who is the person who is having the abortion. That is our safety process,” Cruz says.

Las Libres is committed to getting abortion medication to the most vulnerable populations in the United States, including undocumented arrivals, poor people, and immigrants, despite any restrictive laws. Cruz sees abortion as a human right that cannot be taken away by legislators.

“We are not supporting and promoting a crime—we are assisting a right that the state is not capable of guaranteeing at this moment in the restricted territories,” Cruz says.

Nonetheless, anti-abortion groups in the United States have their sights set on further restricting abortion medication.

In April, a case brought by anti-abortion activists attempting to restrict the drug mifepristone reached the Supreme Court. The suit claimed the FDA had rushed approval of the drug, which studies have overwhelmingly shown to be safe. A stay issued by Justice Samuel Alito preserved access to the drug temporarily, but it is unclear how the court will ultimately rule.

Activists distributing and promoting abortion medication continue to operate in this landscape of legal uncertainty.

Once the abortion pills are smuggled into the United States by activists like those working with Las Libres, they are passed to people like Denny. But an entire support system has sprung up to support both activists and those seeking abortion medication.

Connecting pregnant people to medication

“We are not waiting around for courts and legislators to do the right thing when it comes to abortion access. Our model is already based on that: how do we provide access in the face of unjust laws?” says Elisa Wells, a co-founder and co-director of Plan C.

Plan C, founded in 2015, is a nonprofit that provides information about how to access abortion pills in every state. The group also tests pills from online sellers, and community providers like Denny—vetting every supplier that they list and making sure the medication is authentic and safe.

After the Supreme Court voted to overturn abortion rights, Wells says the website saw an enormous increase in traffic, jumping from around 40,000 visitors on a busy month to more than half a million overnight.

“People recognize that these state legislatures are acting inappropriately and are causing a situation of harm for people trying to access basic medical care,” says Wells. “They recognize this is a solution that provides them an option for bodily autonomy.”

Plan C recommends tele-health providers that can prescribe pills in abortion-friendly states, as well as groups like Aid Access, a nonprofit based outside the United States that mails abortion medication into the country. But for those in restrictive states, or who cannot afford to pay the high prices for some online pills, community groups like WeSaveUs are the only option. Wells says Plan C’s role is to vet and amplify providers like Denny, who are on the ground and able to provide pills for free.

The ultimate goal of Plan C is to advocate for full and free access to abortion for everyone in the United States, Wells says. “But as we wait for that to become the reality in the US, we know that people need alternate sources of access immediately.”

Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, a board-certified OBGYN and the executive director of Mayday Health, a health education nonprofit, does not mince words about the battle she Americans are facing.

“We are in a war for our rights,” she says. “The mantra is: ‘We will save ourselves.’ We can’t wait for the Supreme Court or politicians to fix it.”

Like Plan C, Mayday Health provides information about access to abortion pills. But the group has focussed on viral marketing and high-profile stunts. Earlier this year they launched mobile billboards around 14 college campuses in restrictive states, featuring information on how to access abortion pills.

The anti-abortion movement has long been known for its billboard campaigns, often featuring misleading information about fetal development. Lincoln says Mayday’s billboard campaigns offer a counterbalance.

“You have to capture people’s attention,” Lincoln says. “We are trying to target people who are also being targeted by the anti-abortion movement.”

While groups like Mayday Health and Plan C are no-profits that can easily receive donations to fund their work, on-the-ground activists like Denny are in a much more difficult position.

Denny’s principles mean, like the activists at Las Libres, they don’t charge for the services they provide, instead relying on donations from the wider community to survive. But it’s hard to fundraise when you can’t be open about the services you are providing.

“Not being able to publicly ask for donations sucks,” Denny says, “because of the legal risk involved, a lot of people and a lot of organizations who could help, who have resources they could put to this use, are scared to come near me. They’ll listen and call me a hero, and say ‘Don’t stop what you’re doing’. But they stop short of actually funding me, because they don’t want the possible association.”

The risk of legal prosecution also takes its toll. Denny says they feel “terrified, every day.”

Kentucky’s attorney general, Daniel Cameron, is an evangelical Christian who has made his anti-abortion views clear. While there is no law banning the distribution of abortion pills in Kentucky, Denny and many other activists believe it is a matter of time before an aggressive attorney general finds a way to prosecute. (In Texas, it is illegal for anyone who is not a doctor to distribute abortion pills, with the risk of jail time.)

“I do my best to keep myself safe, but it’s not perfect and it’s never going to be perfect,” Denny says, “but at the same time, I’m not going to not do it. I have the opportunity and the ability to do it, and people need it.”