Posted August 10, 2026
The Senate voted early Saturday morning to confirm acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to permanently lead the Department of Justice. The decision was controversial and largely along party lines, as expected.
One aspect that has received less attention, however, was Blanche’s recent statement on a private call hosted by the White House Faith Office. Blanche assured faith leaders that the Justice Department is “working hand-in-hand” with federal health agencies and the White House “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, returning abortion legislation to the states, the Biden administration in 2023 permanently ended an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortion. The Trump administration left these regulations in place.
Consequently, mail-in pharmacies have been dispensing abortion medication even in states that have banned or severely limited access to abortion clinics. According to Blanche, the administration is “putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations” cannot send abortion pills to states where they are banned.
Pro-life advocates hoped the consequences of the Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization would mean a reduction in the number of abortions nationwide. However, we have been severely disappointed.
For most of the decade prior to the Dobbs ruling, there was a steady decline in abortions nationwide, with a slight uptick in the years just prior to the ruling. Following the ruling, there were 1.05 million abortions in 2023, 1.11 million in 2024, and 1.13 million in 2025.
This upward trend is likely due to expanded telehealth capacity, the ability to mail medication abortion pills to patients, and lower costs for telehealth abortions through virtual clinics. In addition, twelve states now require state-regulated private plans to cover abortion, and twenty Medicaid programs use state-only funds to cover nearly all medically necessary abortions.
Twenty-two states and Washington, DC, also passed shield laws intended to reduce the legal risks for clinicians who provide abortions to patients living in states where abortion is banned or restricted. As a result, the travel rate for abortions across state lines nearly doubled from 2020 to 2024.
And the rise in medication abortions in states that have otherwise banned or limited the procedure is especially relevant as well.
Medication abortions accounted for the majority of abortions in 2023. As the Cleveland Clinic explains, such abortions use prescription pills to end a pregnancy. The most common regimen involves taking mifepristone and misoprostol.
Mifepristone blocks progesterone, a hormone required to sustain a pregnancy. Without it, the fertilized egg will detach from the uterine wall and the wall will contract. Misoprostol is taken after mifepristone. It brings on further contractions, causing the uterus to expel the fertilized egg.
The FDA currently allows medical professionals and pharmacies to distribute these medications in healthcare settings and by mail. Access by mail enables people receiving care through telehealth to receive the medications. Consequently, people living in the nineteen states that ban or significantly limit abortion can end their pregnancies in this way.
To be clear: they are aborting a baby, not preventing a pregnancy.
If you believe as I do that life begins at conception, you know that a fertilized egg is a human being. Killing it in this way is just as unbiblical as killing the preborn baby through other means of abortion such as vacuum aspiration (suctioning the baby from the uterus) and dilation and curettage (using forceps to remove the baby and placenta).
If you research medication abortions online, you’re likely to find numerous sources claiming that they are extremely safe for women. However, the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) performed the largest-ever study of medication abortion, based on a database including 865,727 prescribed abortions from 2017 to 2023. By contrast, FDA approval is based on the results of ten clinical trials involving a total of 30,966 women. Some of these trials were conducted as long as forty-two years earlier.
According to the EPPC, one in ten patients experienced a serious adverse event. Their research reveals that 10.93 percent of women “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within forty-five days following a mifepristone abortion.”
This is at least twenty-two times as high as the summary figure of “less than 0.5 percent” in clinical trials reported on the drug label.
The EPPC report is extremely detailed and thorough. The fact that it was not included in any internet search I performed on the subject demonstrates an inherent pro-abortion bias reflected in search engine algorithms.
And, of course, every “successful” abortion by any method ends the life of a preborn human being.
We should be grateful for all legal means that limit the aborting of babies. But until every state does so, abortion practitioners will find ways around legal limitations and the practice will continue. Even before Roe v. Wade, scholars estimate that 20 to 25 percent of all pregnancies ended in abortion.
I pray every day for the day when our society loves preborn children as God does. And I pray that God will use me to help those considering abortion choose life for their baby. St. John Paul II was right: “The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being.”
How “great” will you be today?
“The difference between the way of life and the way of death is great. Therefore, do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.” —The Didache, a first-century collection of moral teachings
The post Todd Blanche’s DOJ confirmation and the rise in abortion appeared first on Denison Forum.
