(Oregon Right to Life) — A new national poll found that a vast majority of respondents across the political spectrum are in favor of restoring the regulations on the dangerous abortion pill mifepristone that were eliminated during the Biden administration. A summary of the findings highlighting the poll’s results noted that “voters prioritize health and safety protocols surrounding chemical abortion drugs above all other policies linked to the drugs.”
The survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, polled 1,600 likely 2026 general election voters between August 16–19, 2025. The poll results were made public in late October.
69% of respondents agreed that “it makes sense for the FDA to bring back” the requirement for in-person doctors’ visits that was removed under the Biden administration. 87% thought the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) label “should accurately report the real-world impact of the chemical abortion drugs on patients who take it,” including “possible harmful side effects and complications of the abortion drug, such as heavy bleeding, sepsis, stomach pains, infections, scarring, pre-term labor in future pregnancies, and depression and mental health issues.” Most respondents also wanted to require doctors to rule out coercion or abuse before dispensing abortion pills (70%), and 81% agreed that “[n]o one should be able to get chemical abortion drugs online or from a foreign country and be able to give them to a woman without her knowledge or consent.” 72% agreed that “[b]ig drug companies’ profits should not come before women’s health and safety.”
The high percentage of respondents who agreed there should be a restoration of safeguards, along with transparency in adverse event reporting, comes in spite of the fact that a clear majority held a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood (59%) and most self-identified as pro-choice (57%).
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In a press release responding to the survey results, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said “[t]he harmful impact of Biden’s FDA removing safeguards on abortion drugs, like in-person doctor visits, is an issue that overwhelmingly unites voters of all stripes.”
“As a growing body of research indicates these drugs are far more dangerous than advertised, and new horror stories emerge day after day of women coerced and drugged against their will, landing in the ER and even dying along with their babies, Americans’ concerns are more than valid,” Dannenfelser added.
As Oregon Right to Life previously reported, recent reporting suggests that the abortion pill poses far greater risks to pregnant women than previously known.
This summer, the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) published a study based on an analysis of public and private insurance claims submitted by 330 million U.S. patients from 2017 to 2023. In the report, the EPPC calculated the severe complication rate associated with the drug to be twenty-two times the one currently listed on the drug’s official FDA label. A white paper released by the National Right to Life Committee in September also shone a spotlight on the abortion pill’s risks, showing that adverse events, including “hemorrhage, infection, and incomplete abortions often go unrecorded in official data, giving the public a misleading picture of safety,” according to the NRLC press release.
Additionally, ease of access to the dangerous drugs has raised serious concerns about forced abortions. In the past several years alone, numerous men have been hit with criminal charges after spiking their wives’ or girlfriends’ drinks with abortion drugs. Examples highlighted by the pro-life news outlet Live Action include Robert Kawada, charged with misleading a woman into taking a chemical abortion drug under the pretense it was an iron pill in 2024; Jeffery Smith, who was convicted of attempted first-degree intentional homicide for slipping an abortion drug into his former girlfriend’s glass of water in 2022; and Justin Banta, a U.S. Department of Justice employee charged with capital murder for poisoning his girlfriend’s drink with the toxic drug, among others. A 2023 peer-reviewed study found that 70% of abortions are “coerced, unwanted or inconsistent with women’s preferences.”
RELATED: Following Pro-Life Pressure, Costco Affirms It Won’t Sell Abortion Pill Mifepristone
In light of the recent survey results indicating that a majority of likely voters want to see tighter regulations on the abortion pill, Dannenfelser renewed her call for the Trump administration’s FDA to quickly bring back the regulations eliminated under the prior administration.
“The Trump administration promised a fresh review of the evidence on the risks of abortion drugs, and we eagerly await their following through,” she said. “Right now, at minimum, they should heed the emerging science and the will of the people and immediately reinstate in-person doctor visits that existed before Biden’s harmful COVID policy. Twenty-one states whose laws are being undermined and their most vulnerable populations threatened by the flood of out-of-state drugs will thank them.”
Pro-life organizations and Republican lawmakers have been putting pressure on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in recent months, urging them to act quickly to protect women and the unborn from dangerous chemical abortion drugs. Kennedy recently stated that the review is “progressing apace” and the HHS provided an update in late September, but the FDA’s October approval of a generic abortion drug has renewed the urgent calls among pro-life advocates for the government to swiftly crack down on the dangerous drugs.
