Even though some pro-life organizations reported a positive trend in helping women who were considering chemical abortions in March, abortion by telemedicine seems to be growing as an option in certain states where the COVID-19 shutdown continues and many abortion clinics remain closed.

According to The New York Times, “over the past year, the program, called TelAbortion, has expanded from serving five states to serving 13, adding two of those—Illinois and Maryland—as the coronavirus crisis exploded. Not including those new states, about twice as many women had abortions through the program in March and April as in January and February.”

“To accommodate women during the pandemic, TelAbortion is ‘working to expand to new states as fast as possible,’” Elizabeth Raymond, a physician and senior medical associate at Gynuity Health Projects, which runs the program, told the newspaper. “It is also hearing from more women in neighboring states seeking to cross state lines so TelAbortion can serve them.”

In a post on Facebook, Franklin Graham said:

“While the world is frantically trying to save lives from the coronavirus, the distributors of death are hard at work trying to make it easier to abort children during this pandemic. We’ve all heard of the new wave of telemedicine; now there is TelAbortion. Convenient, distant, but still just as devastating to lives. Planned Parenthood, which receives millions in funding from the Federal Government, is a part of this trend. Pray that women would not be led astray by the lies they are fed about abortion.”

According to the Times article, “As of April 22, TelAbortion had mailed a total of 841 packages containing abortion pills and confirmed 611 completed abortions,” Raymond said. “Another 216 participants were either still in the follow-up process or have not been in contact to confirm their results. The program’s growth is significant enough that Republican senators recently introduced a bill to ban telemedicine abortion. …

“Doctors (and nurses or midwives in some states) who do TelAbortion’s video consultations must be licensed in states where medication is mailed, but do not have to practice there. Likewise, patients do not have to live in the states that TelAbortion serves; they just have to be in one of them during the videoconference and provide an address there—that of a friend, relative, even a motel or post office—to which pills can be shipped.”

As the abortion debate continues and states put in place laws about whether or not abortion clinics are essential during this time, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said during a virtual town hall event on Tuesday focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, that “abortion is an essential health care service.”