RFK Jr orders mifepristone review as anti-abortion groups push for ban

Health secretary cites ‘new data’ that emerged from flawed study conservatives are using to pressure US government

Susan Rinkunas
Wed 14 May 2025

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Wednesday that he had directed the FDA to review the regulations around the abortion pill mifepristone.

The review, he said, was necessary due to “new data” – data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US anti-abortion groups are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill, if not pull it from the market entirely.

“It’s alarming,” Kennedy told the Missouri senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, during a congressional hearing. “Clearly, it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/rfk-jr-fda-abortion-pill-mifepristone

What Abortion Pill ‘Reversal’ Really Accomplishes

It’s more than an unproven medical treatment—it’s a view into the antiabortion movement’s larger project.

Sep 5, 2022

THE AMERICAN ANTIABORTION movement is on a full-court press to remake the nation in its image. In June, its decades-long campaign to install sympathetic Supreme Court justices paid off with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, which stripped away the constitutional right to abortion. Now, the movement is pushing for draconian personhood laws (legislation granting fetuses the same rights as people) in an effort to make abortion murder.

In some states, the push is already working. In Georgia, for example, a new law allows expecting parents to claim fetuses as dependents on their tax returns. These victories are the result of a shrewd, ambitious strategy. The rise of an experimental treatment known as abortion pill “reversal” is part of this plan. Although it might appear a peripheral concern—hardly anyone actually seeks out this treatment—it’s a distinctly revealing pet project. The story of the rise of abortion pill reversal contains the antiabortion movement’s blueprint within it.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/abortion-pill-reversal-essay/

USA – White coats in the state capital: OB-GYNs become political force in abortion wars

As lawmakers debate how much to restrict access to abortion, doctors are becoming increasingly vocal.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and MEGAN MESSERLY
08/22/2022

Red state lawmakers rushing to pass new abortion restrictions are being stymied
by an unexpected political force — OB-GYNs.

These physicians — many of whom have never before mobilized politically — are
banding together in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade,
lobbying state lawmakers, testifying before committees, forming PACs, and
launching online campaigns against proposed abortion restrictions. Legislators
who are themselves physicians are using their medical backgrounds to persuade
colleagues to scale back some of the more restrictive and punitive portions of
anti-abortion laws being considered.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/doctors-abortion-state-capitals-00052946

USA – Abortion foes push to narrow ‘life of mother’ exceptions

Doctors warn women’s lives would be endangered and maternal deaths could increase.

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
May 13, 2022

The pregnant woman was bleeding heavily by the time she arrived at the hospital. Maria Phillis, an obstetrician/gynecologist, and other doctors on duty at the Cleveland medical facility transfused her with bags of blood, but her condition deteriorated rapidly. It wasn’t long before the mother faced an awful choice: Her placenta, a part of the womb, had attached in the wrong place, wreaking havoc in her body. But the baby was far too young to survive on its own.

The pregnancy was terminated to save the woman’s life — an outcome painful for all involved. “This was a very desired pregnancy,” Phillis said.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/13/abortion-ban-exceptions-mothers-life/

Byron Calhoun says abortion is never necessary to save a mother’s life. He’s the only high-risk OB/GYN in central West Virginia.

By Caroline Kitchener
Sept. 10, 2021

At a 2019 antiabortion conference in Ontario, Canada, Byron Calhoun was introduced as a “messenger of God.”

The doctor assumed the podium in a pinstripe suit and bow tie, his high forehead glinting underneath the hotel ballroom’s bright fluorescents. Dozens of conference-goers clapped, then grew quiet, eyes fixed on Calhoun and the statistic that brought them all there, blown up on a banner behind him: “1 out of every 5 babies is killed by abortion.”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/the-lily/antiabortion-doctor-obgyn-care/

10.09.2021