Senators seek information from FDA and abortion drug manufacturers on mifepristone

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — A group of U.S. senators who oppose abortion sent investigatory letters to three abortion drug manufacturers seeking information about their products, as well as a similar letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, their committee’s Republican majority said March 25.

The letters come amid frustration from pro-life groups that the status of the FDA’s review of mifepristone, a drug commonly, but not exclusively, used for first trimester abortion, remains unclear.

A trio of letters sent to manufacturers of mifepristone — Evita Solutions, GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories — request details about the manufacturing, sales and marketing of the drug. The letters were signed by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee; Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus; Steve Daines, R-Mont.; James Lankford, R-Okla.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

“Chemical abortion drug makers profit off killing innocent children while putting mothers’ lives at risk,” Cassidy said in a statement. “These manufacturers and websites have facilitated the explosion in online sales of these harmful drugs without regard for women’s health and safety while opening the door for coercion and abuse. FDA should act within its existing authorities to curb this abuse and immediately reinstate safeguards such as the in-person dispensing requirement.”

In their related letter to the FDA, the senators urged the agency to use the “numerous tools at its disposal to prevent misbranded and unapproved versions of the chemical abortion drugs from being marketed in the U.S. by online retailers in violation of federal law.”

“While FDA acknowledges the risks of buying chemical abortion drugs online, with a warning on its website stating, ‘FDA Does Not Recommend Buying Mifepristone Online,’ and advises Americans that there are serious health risks involved in doing so, FDA must do more,” the letter said.

Hyde-Smith said in a statement, “Given the potentially life-threatening risks to women, the FDA should take immediate action to fight the sale and distribution of unapproved and misbranded versions of chemical abortion drugs.”

“We know that more than 1 in 10 women who take Mifepristone will experience a serious adverse event, a situation that is made worse with these questionable variants in circulation. Even under proper safety protocols, this drug is sold for the primary purpose of ending life and deserves heightened scrutiny,” Hyde-Smith said.

Proponents of mifepristone — the first of two drugs used in a chemical, sometimes called medication abortion — argue it is statistically safe for a woman to take, and attempts to restrict it are an attempt to ban abortion outright. Opponents of the drug’s use for abortion argue there are significant risks to those who take it, particularly outside of medical settings, in addition to ending the life of an unborn child early in its development.

Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), which advocates for the drug’s availability, said in a March 4 post on its website regarding several state lawsuits seeking to revoke mifepristone’s FDA approval that those efforts are “part of a broader, coordinated effort to ban abortion nationwide.”

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 passed, a situation that Catholic teaching would hold as morally licit use.

A Pew Research poll conducted Jan. 20-26 showed 55% of Americans supported keeping medication-based abortion legal in their respective states, with 26% opposed and 18% not sure.

At the same time, pro-life groups have pointed to surveys showing Americans support in-person medical evaluation requirements for mifepristone. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America highlighted on March 25 a recent survey by CRC Research that showed 67% of Americans support the FDA reinstating those requirements to minimize potential complications.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA’s president, argued in another March 25 statement, “Abortion numbers are up, not down after Dobbs, driven by mail-order drugs flooding the states without regard for their laws. We are now at over 1.1 million abortions per year.”

Dannenfelser referred to the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, where the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and related abortion precedent that made abortion a constitutional right.

Abortion has continued to rise following Dobbs, continuing an upward trend that began during the first Trump administration and reversed a decades-long decline since its historic peak at 1.6 million abortions in 1990. Abortion industry research firm Guttmacher Institute observed that 2025 saw nearly 1.13 million abortions in the U.S., the highest it has been since 2009.

After the Dobbs decision, the Catholic Church — which teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion — reiterated the Church’s concern for both mother and child. It called to strengthen available support for those living in poverty or other causes that can increase the risk of abortion.

Dannenfelser, who is Catholic, said Cassidy and the other senators “are boldly confronting this crisis head-on, demanding real accountability and safety for women and girls.”

“Abortion drug manufacturers are exploiting the reckless Biden-era COVID policy that opened the floodgates to potent abortion drugs sold online to anyone with a credit card and shipped by mail across state lines, without any in-person medical evaluation,” Dannenfelser said.

“The Trump-Vance FDA,” she argued, “has both the authority and the duty to act immediately, which voters across the board strongly support and which the GOP base demands.”

OSV News national news editor Peter Jesserer Smith contributed to this report.

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