175 lawmakers demand ‘robust’ investigation on risks of abortion pill

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Congressional Republicans are demanding a “robust” investigation of federal safety standards and health risks connected to mifepristone, a pill commonly, but not exclusively, used for early abortion.

The letter, dated Nov. 20 and co-signed by 175 Republican lawmakers, asks Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Makary to investigate the “deleterious and grossly underreported effects” of mifepristone on women, prohibit mail shipment of the drug, and immediately “reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement.”

Released Nov. 24, the letter also condemned the Biden administration’s “egregious action to remove critical safeguards that once applied to abortion drugs.” In addition to urging an end to the mailing of the drugs, the letter objected to “the FDA’s approval” in September of a new generic form of mifepristone and urged the Trump administration to provide more information about that approval.

Signers of the letter include House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana; Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota; and Rep. Lisa C. McClain, R-Mich, Republican Conference chairwoman.

“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,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, said in a statement accompanying release of the letter. “The carelessness of Biden’s FDA has taken and harmed thousands of lives, the unborn and their mothers alike.”

“Recent findings raise real questions about the safety of chemical abortion pills like mifepristone, and Americans deserve straight answers about the risks involved,” Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn., said in a statement. A licensed pharmacist, she is vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health.

“No medication with known complications should be handed out without proper medical oversight and follow-up care,” she added.

First approved by the FDA for early abortion in 2000, mifepristone — the first of two drugs used in a medication-based abortion — gained the moniker “the abortion pill.” However, the same drug combination has become used sometimes in recent years for miscarriage care, where an unborn child has already died, a situation that Catholic teaching would hold as morally licit use.

The Catholic Church opposes direct abortion. It teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion.

The lawmakers’ Nov. 20 letter follows an Oct. 29 pledge by Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America national to push the Trump administration for more information regarding the FDA approval of the new generic form of mifepristone.

In a related development regarding mifepristone, Students for Life Action hailed the introduction Nov. 24 of the Clean Water for All Life Act in the Wisconsin Legislature. Other states considering the same legislation include Arizona, Idaho, Maine, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The measure is co-sponsored by Republican Reps. Lindee Brill and Nate Gustafson and Republican Sen. Andre Jacque.

The bill would require doctors who prescribe abortion pills to make patients collect and return their expelled fetus in medical waste bags for disposal. It’s intended to keep abortion pill chemicals from entering public water supplies.

Previously, the FDA has rejected the idea, issuing a response to a Students for Life petition that the agency require prescribers to include a “medical waste bag and catch-kit” with all mifepristone prescriptions.

The petition, the agency said, “offers only conjecture that remnants of mifepristone in the nation’s water system are ‘causing unknown harm to citizens and animals alike,'” and that Students for Life “provides no evidence showing that bodily fluid from patients who have used mifepristone (a one-time, single-dose product) is causing harm to the nation’s aquatic environment.”

Water treatment processes handle many forms of medications, including birth control pills, in trace amounts.

In a Nov. 21 statement, Student for Life president Kristan Hawkins called mifepristone “the abortion industry’s dirty little secret. Hospitals and medical clinics can’t legally flush chemically tainted blood, placenta tissue, and human remains, but the Biden administration gave a de facto permit to pollute in allowing chemical abortion pill pushers to supersize their markets with … online sales and delivery by mail. It’s up to the Trump administration to finally do the environmental testing that’s been ignored and to go back to the drawing board on chemical abortion pills.”

The Students for Life effort began in 2024, when, as part of a coalition of pro-life groups, it demanded that the EPA track the “forever chemicals” in mifepristone.

In 2023, abortion drugs accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in the United States, up from 53 percent in 2020.

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