September 3, 2020

20 Senators Call on FDA to Ban Abortion Pill

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr
On Tuesday, 20 Senators led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking it to classify the abortion pill mifepristone as dangerous and remove it from the market.

The letter, sent to FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, reads:

“[G]iven the devastating impact this drug has had on American women and children, we must now urge the FDA to exercise its authority … and classify the abortion pill as an ‘imminent hazard to the public health’ that poses a ‘significant threat of danger’ and remove this pill from the U.S. market,”

The abortion pill was subject to the FDA's Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) restrictions until recently, when a federal judge halted the restrictions. The reasoning for the sudden ruling was that women may be unable to get elective procedures such as abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge believed that the REMS restrictions became a burden on abortion access when coupled with the circumstances of the virus, so they have been suspended for the duration of the pandemic.

The senators' letter responds to this situation:

“We believe that this rogue judicial activism is a gross breach of the separation of powers, undermining the FDA’s statutory authority to ensure drug safety, while recklessly endangering American women and children. The FDA must resist this opportunistic ploy to expand access to abortion under the fallacy that the REMS imposes an undue burden on women’s rights.”

The abortion pill regimen is a two-step process in which a pregnant mother first starves a child to death by taking mifepristone. After the child is dead, the woman then takes misoprostol to begin contractions and expel the deceased child from their body. This is often done at home without any medical supervision, and it can be extremely dangerous if the woman had undiagnosed pregnancy conditions such as ectopic pregnancy.

“[I]t is by now nakedly obvious that the abortion industry and its allies in the media, billionaire philanthropic circles, and special interest groups, have wanted an unregulated and demedicalized abortion pill since the moment the FDA first approved it in 2000,” the letter continues. “… We believe this deadly pill should never have been approved, yet the abortion industry was politically rewarded with an accelerated approval process normally reserved for high-risk drugs that address life-threatening illnesses like AIDS. As you are surely aware, pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness, and the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease.”

U.S. House, Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) leads a group of 72 representatives in sending a similar letter to the FDA.

Click here to read more.