(Oregon Right to Life) — A Republican U.S. senator this week urged the Trump administration to “reconsider” its recent and unexpected push to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the loosening of regulations around the dangerous abortion pill mifepristone.
In a May 7 letter, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri expressed disappointment concerning the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Monday call to dismiss a lawsuit against the abortion pill brought by three Republican states.
“This week, your department sought the dismissal of three intervenor state plaintiffs—led by my home state of Missouri—in abortion drug litigation pending before a federal district court,” Sen. Hawley wrote in the letter, addressed to Trump administration Attorney General Pam Bondi, who heads the DOJ.
“Missouri, joined by Idaho and Kansas, is seeking to restore safeguards for the chemical abortion drug, mifepristone, that the Biden administration eliminated,” Hawley said.
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Pro-life advocates nationwide were surprised and dismayed this week when Trump’s DOJ urged Texas-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to dismiss the state’s complaint against the FDA in a bid to force the federal agency to restore safety regulations on the abortion pill.
The DOJ’s recommendation to dismiss the case stemmed from its contention that the states lacked jurisdiction to file their case in Texas, even though Kacsmaryk ruled in January that the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho could intervene after the U.S. Supreme Court said the original plaintiff doctors with the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) lacked standing.
“Essentially, the States argue that they can piggyback on the original Alliance plaintiffs’ venue, notwithstanding that those plaintiffs were held to lack standing and have now voluntarily dismissed their claims,” the DOJ said.
But while acknowledging that the DOJ’s effort to dismiss the states’ complaint was “mostly procedural in nature,” Hawley argued that the Trump administration was effectively siding with the Biden administration by urging Judge Kacsmaryk to dismiss the suit.
“I am troubled by the fact that the Justice Department has sided with the Biden administration’s position, especially considering new data showing the harms of chemical abortion for women,” Hawley wrote.
In the letter, Sen. Hawley highlighted the results of a study conducted by the Ethics in Public Policy Center (EPPC) and published Monday that found that approximately one in every ten women who take mifepristone experience serious adverse events – including sepsis, infection, and hemorrhaging – a rate 22 times higher than the one printed on the FDA label.
“Our research shows unequivocally that mifepristone abortion, as currently practiced in the U.S., is considerably more dangerous to women than is represented on the FDA-approved drug label,” the researchers said, arguing that the FDA “should immediately reinstate its earlier, stronger patient safety protocols to ensure physician responsibility for women who take mifepristone under their care, as well as mandate full reporting of its side effects.”
READ: Report: Abortion Pills Result in Serious Complications in at Least One in Every Ten Cases
“Despite these severe safety risks, the Biden administration allowed mifepristone to be delivered via mail and without any medical supervision whatsoever,” Hawley wrote in his May 7 letter.
“The Biden administration’s mail-order abortion policy poses a grave threat to the health and safety of American women,” the Missouri senator said. “I strongly urge you to reconsider the Justice Department’s defense of this policy in court.”
As Oregon Right to Life has reported, numerous safety regulations on the prescription and distribution of the abortion pill have been removed over the past decade, with significant changes being made under the Biden administration.
In 2016, the FDA implemented a new policy that extended the timeframe in which mifepristone could be prescribed during pregnancy. It also removed the requirement to report complications that do not result in death. In 2021, under the Biden administration and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA permitted mifepristone to be prescribed online and distributed via mail. Local pharmacies were also authorized to dispense the drugs, and in January 2023, that permission was extended to retail pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS.
