FIX EXCLUSIVES
OB-GYN says researchers were working with group that mails abortion drugs in ‘violation of Texas’ laws to protect unborn life’
The University of Texas at Austin recently scrubbed its website of a research project focused on “self-managed abortion needs” — but it has not said why.
The move came as several pro-life leaders and a Texas OB-GYN criticized the project, noting Texas law prohibits abortions.
Project SANA, or the Self-managed Abortion Needs Assessment Project, in its own words exists to “examine the who, what, and why of self-managed abortion in the United States.”
An internet archive captured the project’s website before being removed, which appears to have been sometime in June.
It explained, “a key focus of our work is the increasing accessibility of self-management using the medications mifepristone and misoprostol provided through online telemedicine.”
Furthermore, the website stated, “At Project SANA, we study the safety, effectiveness, and accessibility of self-managed medication abortion, as well as people’s motivations for self-managing and their self-management experiences.”
The College Fix reached out to the university media relations office about the webpage deletion three times in recent weeks, but no one replied to the emails or a phone message. The Fix also asked if the university faced political pressure to end the program.
According to Texas law, a “person may not knowingly perform, induce, or attempt an abortion” except in cases of medical emergency.
The most recent post on the Project SANA website is dated March 27, 2024, according to internet archives.
More recently, however, it received attention when a July report revealed that the university received an invoice of $6,000 from Dr. Rebecca Gomperts relating to Project SANA. Gomperts runs several organizations that provide abortions to women across the world, including in locations where the practice is illegal. These organizations include Aid Access, which is based in Austria and provides drug abortions via mail to women in the U.S.
Texas Scorecard first reported about the 2021 invoice, obtained through an open records request, and other documents that show Gomperts working with the project leaders at UT-Austin on self-induced abortion research. The university did not answer the news outlet’s requests about whether it paid the invoice.
Gomperts did not respond to The Fix’s requests for comment over the past two weeks asking about her work with Project SANA. Neither did Aid Access.
But records obtained by Texas Scorecard show Gomperts communicating with the university project’s leader, Professor Abigail Aiken, as recently as March of this year.
Aiken, who teaches public affairs and health policy, led the research project and regularly teaches a class called “Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice.” The Fix reached out to Aiken twice via email over the past two weeks, but received no reply.
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Meanwhile, Joe Pojman, executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, told The Fix in a recent email the research coming out of the project “seemed to be more of legislative activism than legitimate academic research.”
“We were never fans of the Project SANA and are not disappointed to see that it has apparently been dropped by The University of Texas at Austin,” Pojman said.
He also remarked that, “It is noteworthy that the principal investigator, Abigail Aiken, testified against HB 5510, a pro-life bill considered on April 25, 2025, in the Texas Legislature (House State Affairs Committee),” which exemplifies the point that “Dr. Aiken advocates against pro-life laws, which goes far beyond academic research.”
A Texas OB-GYN and researcher with the Charlotte Lozier Institute also told The Fix that the public university project used tax dollars to fund “dangerous” and unethical research.
“Texans shouldn’t be footing the bill for research that not only promotes dangerous abortion drugs but indirectly funds Aid Access, which illegally mails the drugs in direct violation of Texas’ laws to protect unborn life,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, the institute’s vice president and director of medical affairs.
Skop told The Fix: “As a board-certified OB-GYN practicing in Texas, I’ve seen the devastating impact these drugs have on women when they come to the ER with complications. Programs like these fail to protect the lives of women and unborn babies.”
Another pro-life advocate, Sue Liebel, state affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told The Fix that, “It is ironic that a state-funded university would finance an organization within its ranks whose stated goal is to undermine the state’s laws.”
Furthermore, Liebel said, “This entity encourages bad actors from outside the state to blatantly break the law by mailing abortion drugs into Texas, misleading pregnant women to take dangerous black-box drugs without a doctor’s supervision to end their babies’ lives.”
“These drugs have brought countless women to the emergency room who are experiencing hemorrhaging, infection and sepsis – some women even losing their lives because of abortion drugs,” she said.
Several groups that support abortion declined to comment about the situation when contacted by The Fix.
Reproductive Freedom for All declined to comment, and directed The Fix to the Guttmacher Institute. A spokesperson for the pro-abortion research group told The Fix last week that it was “not best placed to speak to these specific questions” when asked about the impact of Texas’s pro-life laws on abortion research at universities.
The Fix also contacted the office state Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Republican who has sponsored a number of pro-life bills in Texas, but no response was received.
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: The University of Texas at Austin recently removed a ‘self-managed’ abortion research project from its website; University of Texas at Austin, Project SANA/X
