Members of Congress urge Trump administration to investigate abortion pill safety

In a new letter, 175 members of Congress are urging the Trump administration to investigate safety concerns surrounding the abortion drug mifepristone.

Key Takeaways:

175 members of Congress sent a letter to the HHS and FDA asking for an investigation and review of the safety of mifepristone.
Under the Biden administration, safety rules surrounding the drug, the first in the two-drug abortion pill regimen, were loosened.
A recent analysis has stated that women suffer severe adverse effects from mifepristone at a rate 22x higher than has been disclosed.

The Details:

In a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Martin Makary, 175 House members, including the House GOP leadership, asked for an investigation and safety standard review of mifepristone, the first drug in the two-drug abortion pill regimen. It pointed to a recent analysis, “The Abortion Pill Harms Women,” from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), which revealed that serious adverse events from mifepristone are happening about 22 times more often than the FDA reports.

The letter states:

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As Members of Congress who share in the President’s vision for safeguarding life, protecting the health and wellbeing of American families, and ensuring that federal agencies act responsibly, we write to respectfully ask that the deleterious and grossly underreported effects on women of the drug mifepristone be aggressively investigated and decisive action taken to protect women from harm.

The lawmakers also asked "that immediate action be taken to, at a minimum, reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone."

The in-person dispensing requirement was a safety regulation placed on mifepristone in 2011 so that women could receive a medical exam and have their health and safety monitored when taking the drug.

The addition of the safety rule as part of the REMS safety system came after the deaths of multiple women associated with the abortion pill regimen, which also includes the drug misoprostol. The in-person dispensing requirement was removed under the Biden administration to make the drug easier to access. As a result, it is now available online through various organizations that ship the drugs to anyone who requests them, including those who intend to force abortions on unsuspecting women.

“The Biden-Harris administration’s blatant disregard for the innumerable health risks and complications caused by mifepristone — the baby poison pill — has been the status quo for far too long," said Rep. Chris Smith, Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. "The carelessness of Biden’s FDA has taken and harmed thousands of lives, the unborn and their mothers alike. Now that President Trump — the most pro-life president in U.S. history — has taken the executive helm, we are confident that his effective and life-affirming administration will work to undo the Biden-Harris administration’s dangerous and ill-conceived policies with reference to the increased accessibility and reduced medical oversight of chemical abortion drugs."

He added, "I look forward to working with Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner Makary to protect women and children from the violence of abortion by strengthening the safety standards of mifepristone and other chemical abortion pills.”

Rep. Diana Harshbarger, a pharmacist, said, "I've always believed women deserve the full truth when it comes to their health. Recent findings raise real questions about the safety of chemical abortion pills like mifepristone, and Americans deserve straight answers about the risks involved. No medication with known complications should be handed out without proper medical oversight and follow-up care."

The Big Picture:

The EPPC study found that nearly 11% of women who take mifepristone suffer infection, hemorrhaging, sepsis, and other serious adverse events. The Obama-era, FDA-approved label on mifepristone understates the risks to women, stating that about 1 in 25 women will require a visit to the emergency room, said the letter. Yet, the Biden administration ignored the warnings, said the lawmakers, including research that showed 5.8% of women in a "telemedicine [plus] mail group" and emergency room visits exceeded the warning label, which states up to 4.6% experience ER visits.

One of the reasons mifepristone was allowed to be marketed as 'safe' is because women who took the drug were told to lie to ER doctors and tell them they were experiencing complications from a natural miscarriage. This was a way to bypass requirements to report complications, and it skewed the data to make mifepristone appear safer than it actually is.

"The dangerous Biden mail-order scheme was designed to give abortion activists license to mail drugs everywhere, even into states... that have pro-life protections for pregnant mothers and their unborn babies," said the letter. "These drugs are sent across state lines with no physician oversight, and without appropriate screening to ensure that bad actors are not secretly poisoning women without their knowledge or forcing women to take abortion drugs against their will—a clear indication that radical pro-abortion activists care more about protecting abortion access than about upholding women’s health and safety."

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The Bottom Line:

The abortion pill now accounts for the majority of abortions in the US, about 63%. Yet, most women who take it don't know the true risks.

Pro-life members of Congress hope that "[u]nder [Trump's] leadership, HHS and FDA can reverse this wrong" done to women by "immediately reinstat[ing] the REMS requiring in-person dispensing of mifepristone and to expedite the promised review by the FDA into the dangers of abortion drugs."

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