Award-winning produce, baked goods, textiles and livestock weren’t the only items on display at the Kentucky State Fair. Mayday Health, a reproductive health education nonprofit, took to the skies to promote mail access to abortion-inducing drugs.
Leo Raisner, who founded Mayday Health and serves as executive director, said the organization goes where the crowds are, and the commonwealth’s fair draws more than 600,000 people a year.
“Mayday shares information about abortion pills in states where clinics are banned or restricted,” Raisner said. “We want everyone to know that safe, effective abortion medication exists.”
Raisner said there’s a “flood of misinformation” about the safety and efficacy of abortion pills online, and so Mayday doesn’t stop at social media ads promoting mail access to the drugs.
“We’ve found it’s just as important to step outside the digital fight altogether and reach people with facts the old-fashioned, analog way.”
Mayday Health first promoted abortion pills in Kentucky late last summer, running ads—stating “Pregnant? Don’t want to be? Learn more at Mayday.Health“—at more than 80 gas stations statewide.
Mayday does not provide abortion pills, but links to several prescribing organizations. All five will mail mifepristone and misoprostol—the two-drug regimen most commonly used to terminate a pregnancy—without confirming the requestor is pregnant or early enough in the pregnancy to take the drugs.
Raisner said Mayday’s advocacy is protected by the First Amendment, even in Kentucky, where shipping, ordering and taking abortion-inducing drugs is banned.
Attorney General Russell Coleman disagrees.
“It appears abortion activists are flying over Louisville advertising illegal drugs. They are breaking the law,” Coleman told Kentucky Today. “Since January, our Office has been investigating mail order abortion pills targeting vulnerable Kentuckians. We will not tolerate this illegal danger.”
The AG’s civil investigation launched at the beginning of the year is seeking to determine whether Mayday violated Kentucky law—including 2022’s House Bill 3, which prohibits the mailing or delivery of abortion-inducing drugs in the state, and Kentucky’s Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits deceptive or misleading communications with Kentuckians.
Coleman did not elaborate Saturday on actions his office might take to stop Mayday and their advertisements—what Raisner calls “guerilla marketing.”
“We’ve faced pushback, lawsuits, and threats from state attorneys general before, and we’ve won every time,” Raisner said.
“Mayday and organizations like theirs are the tip of the iceberg,” said Addia Wuchner, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life.
Shield laws in multiple states protect from litigation abortion pill providers who send the drugs into jurisdictions where abortion is illegal, and women continue to order the pills through the mail despite their state laws—including in Kentucky. Early this year, a Wolfe County woman was indicted on multiple charges related to her self-managed abortion.
That’s why Kentucky Right to Life worked with lawmakers on House Bill 646 during the 2026 legislative session. The bill, which died in committee, would have classified abortion-inducing drugs as controlled substances, targeted entities that ship those and other death-inducing drugs into Kentucky, upgraded penalties for violators and provided civil remedies for those harmed.
“It’s illegal what they’re doing, but I believe we have to have more punch, and a different way to go after them, to go around those shield laws,” Wuchner added.
Rep. T.J. Roberts, R-Burlington, confirmed that he plans to refile the legislation in 2027.
“I generally don’t speculate on what we’ll [the General Assembly] pass, but as the lives of babies continue to be intentionally ended in Kentucky by a lobby that glorifies the practice and openly defies our current laws, I certainly hope we can tackle this issue and ensure that these groups know Kentucky values life and is no place for their Merchant of Death business model,” Roberts said.
“I do this because I believe everyone in this country deserves equal access to the truth about their health care options, no matter what state they live in,” Raisner said.
