The New York-based company Mayday.Health is advertising illegal abortion procedures in Kentucky, state Attorney General Russell Coleman (R) alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday. “These out of state activists are not only breaking Kentucky law, they seem to delight in rubbing our faces in it,” Coleman said. “We refuse to allow Mayday to taint our values and put our people at risk.”
The lawsuit highlights the ongoing effort by pro-abortion activists since the Dobbs decision in 2022 to undermine laws protecting the unborn in pro-life states by illegally shipping abortion pills across state lines. Due to the Trump administration’s lack of action, pro-life states have struggled to enforce their own pro-life laws against actors in pro-abortion states — to the point that nonprofits like Mayday are publicly advertising in pro-life states.
“In October 2025, Mayday placed certain advertisements at a number of Kentucky gas stations. These ads read: ‘Pregnant? Don’t Want to Be? Learn more at Mayday.Health,’” described the lawsuit, which was filed in the circuit court for Logan County. Logan, a semi-rural county west of Bowling Green, was one of three Kentucky counties in which Mayday bought advertisements at gas stations.
Additionally, “on or about August 28 and 29, 2026, Mayday displayed an advertisement using an airplane over the City of Louisville and the Kentucky State Fair. The advertisement read ‘ABORTION PILLS BY MAIL. Mayday.Health,’” the lawsuit added. “Mayday Executive Director Leo Raisner acknowledged targeting the Kentucky State Fair because of the large crowd it brings.” Raisner previously worked in the White House Office of Digital Strategy under President Biden.
“Mayday is a pro-abortion non-profit organization that connects the public with distributors of abortion-inducing drugs,” the lawsuit described. “It advertises through various means, including physical media that directs consumers to its website.”
That website puts abortion front and center — literally. “The homepage of Mayday’s website (www.mayday.health) displays a question to visitors (‘What do you need?’) and then lists ‘Abortion’ as the first option,” the lawsuit stated. “Mayday represents on its website that the links contained on the site that direct users to the websites of providers of abortion-inducing drugs (such as ‘Abuzz,’ ‘At Home Abortion,’ ‘The MAP,’ ‘A safe Choice,’ and ‘We Take Care of Us’) are ‘trusted websites.’”
The lawsuit stated clearly how this interacted with Kentucky law. “A Kentucky user clicking through Mayday’s website and selecting an option to ‘just take me to the abortion pills’ will be shown third-party providers who ship abortion pills to all 50 states, including States like Kentucky, where distributing abortion-inducing drugs through the mail is illegal,” it stated.
Thus, “Mayday’s website does more than simply provide information — it facilitates, encourages, and is even integral to the distribution of abortion-inducing drugs into Kentucky through the mail, a criminal act and class D felony,” the lawsuit continued. “These distributors would not have shipped those drugs to the consumer but for Mayday.Health’s website and advertisements directing the consumer to them. Indeed, here, Mayday.Health links users to the abortion pill providers directly. Simply put, Mayday’s website and its advertisements constitute speech that is integral to criminal conduct.”
Currently, Kentucky law protects all unborn babies from abortion, except in cases where the mother’s life would be at risk. It requires that the “physician performing or inducing an abortion shall be present in person and in the same room with the patient.” It also forbids anyone to “distribute any abortion-inducing drug … via courier, delivery, or mail service.”
Thus, the mail-order abortion distributors for whose products Mayday advertises sell to Kentuckians only in violation of Kentucky law. Attorney General Coleman contended that this made Mayday’s advertising “integral to” the illegal distribution of abortion drugs through the mail.
The lawsuit requests “a permanent injunction to prevent Mayday’s future violations of law,” as well as civil penalties up to $2,000 per violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act.
Mayday responded to the lawsuit by raising a free speech defense. “We look forward to defending our First Amendment protected work in court — and winning, like we have against similar efforts to suppress our speech,” said Raisner. “Abortion pills are safe, effective and FDA-approved, and everyone deserves access to that information.”
However, the Kentucky lawsuit already pre-empted that defense by arguing that Mayday’s statements constituted “commercial speech,” which courts have said is subject to greater regulation.
“Mayday’s website and advertisements directly ‘advertise’ other abortion pill providers and their goods and services, namely, abortion pills,” the lawsuit argued. “Indeed, Mayday’s intent is to help women terminate their pregnancies if they want to. They do this by funneling them to abortion pill providers. Mayday acts within traditional advertisement channels, including by utilizing gas station ads, airplane banners, and social media posts in order to achieve this end. All of this activity fits squarely within commercial speech.”
“This enforcement action … furthers the Commonwealth’s compelling interest in protecting unborn life,” Coleman stated. The Kentucky laws in question “make it harder for more innocent and vulnerable children from being killed via abortion. Preventing abortion pills from being sent via the mail certainly furthers that purpose.”
