USA – The Abortion Pill Is Safe. Scientists Fear an FDA Investigation Will Ignore Science

Some scientists are concerned that the Trump administration will use “junk science” when reviewing mifepristone’s safety record

October 30, 2025
By Liz Szabo

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will launch a review of the safety of the abortion pill, mifepristone. Health researchers say they’re concerned that the review will be politicized and based on flawed reports. More than 100 studies published over the past few decades have shown that the drug, which was approved by the FDA in 2000, is safe and effective at ending a pregnancy.

Given Kennedy’s history of misrepresenting scientific evidence about vaccines, autism and Tylenol, some scientists say they worry that the health secretary will base the FDA report on unreliable sources.

Continued: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fda-is-investigating-the-abortion-pill-mifepristone-despite-decades-of/

Celebrating mifepristone, a hero in modern abortion access, on its 25th anniversary in the U.S.

Though it faces new legal challenges, mifepristone may offer yet more

By Elisa Wells
Sept. 28, 2025

When the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, the abortion pill, on Sept. 28, 2000, none of us working on expanding access to reproductive health care could have imagined the future we find ourselves in 25 years later. From the fall of Roe in 2022 and the subsequent banning or restriction of abortion in 19 states, to South Carolina’s recent efforts to include some forms of birth control in its total abortion ban, access to the basic medical care and medications that allow us to control our reproductive destinies is hanging by a thread. In the midst of this reproductive health care apocalypse, mifepristone is proving itself to be a hero in the fight for abortion access.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2025/09/28/mifepristone-abortion-pill-fda-approval-25th-anniversary/

Mifepristone Has Been Proven Safe for 25 Years. It’s Under Attack Again.

Safeguarding mifepristone is not just about abortion care—it’s about defending the role of science in medicine itself.

9/26/2025
by Kiki Freedman, Ms. Magazine

Twenty-five years ago, the Food and Drug Administration made a decision that changed the course of reproductive health in America. By approving mifepristone (the first pill in the two-step medication abortion regimen), the agency gave people access to one of the safest, most effective and most studied medications in modern medicine.

Since then, more than 7.5 million Americans have relied on it to end pregnancies safely and with dignity. Its safety record is stronger than many drugs we take without question, including penicillin. What was once a breakthrough is now a cornerstone of healthcare. And at a moment when vaccines, Tylenol and even basic public health guidance are being questioned, that kind of evidence-based decision-making feels more fragile—and more essential—than ever.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/09/26/mifepristone-safe-effective-science-women-health-ru-486/

27.09.2025

Commentary

abortion pill

anti-choice anti-science

Food and Drug Administration

telemedicine abortion

If Trump Restricts Mifepristone, Clinicians Are Ready to Pivot to Misoprostol-Only Abortions

7/7/2025
by Carrie N. Baker

For decades, clinicians relied on the gold standard of medication abortion care: a two-pill regimen. Mifepristone is taken first, followed by misoprostol 24 to 48 hours later. However, misoprostol can be used alone for abortion. Recent research on patients in the U.S. confirms that misoprostol-only abortion is not only safe and effective, but that patients respond positively to using it.

In light of the FDA’s recent decision to reopen its safety review of mifepristone—a move advocates warn may lead to new restrictions—abortion providers say they are ready to offer the misoprostol-only regimen to keep telehealth abortion available in all 50 states.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/07/trump-restricts-mifepristone-misoprostol-only-abortions/

French scientist behind abortion pill dies aged 98

Rorey Bosotti, BBC News
May 30, 2025

The French scientist who created the abortion pill has died at the age of 98.

Étienne-Émile Baulieu helped develop the oral drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, which has provided millions of women across the world with a safe and inexpensive alternative to a surgical abortion.

Dr Baulieu died at his home in Paris on Friday, his widow confirmed in a statement.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20ndk96vpvo

USA – How shoddy science is fueling a charge to restrict abortion pill access

The FDA has been tasked with re-evaluating the safety of mifepristone after a flawed report claimed it has a high rate of serious complications.

May 19, 2025
By Aria Bendix

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tasked the Food and Drug Administration with conducting a safety review of mifepristone, a pill used in most U.S. abortions. Kennedy said this week that the review was warranted due to an “alarming” new report on serious adverse events released last month.

“Clearly it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed,” he told Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., at a Senate budget hearing on Wednesday. “I’ve asked Marty Makary, who’s the director of FDA, to do a complete review and to report back.”

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/shoddy-science-fueling-charge-restrict-abortion-pill-access-rcna207034

20.05.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

anti-choice fake science

fake science

Food and Drug Administration

Josh Hawley

Marty Makary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

United States

Anti-choice

Human Rights

USA – Abortion providers challenge FDA’s remaining mifepristone restrictions in federal court

“It’s really important that we protect … safe access to medication abortion no matter where people live — Virginia is playing a key role in the South right now,” Whole Woman’s Health Alliance founder and president Amy Hagstrom Miller said Monday.

By: Sofia Resnick and Charlotte Rene Woods
May 19, 2025

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Abortion pills — and questions over their inherent safety — were back in federal court Monday. Unlike a lawsuit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, plaintiffs this time are not anti-abortion activists arguing medication abortion should be banned, but abortion providers arguing the remaining restrictions should be lifted to match the drug’s 25-year record of safety and efficacy.

The suit seeks to make abortion pills more accessible by removing several existing restrictions on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s mifepristone-misoprostol regimen first approved in 2000. The drug was approved under the FDA’s drug safety program called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), provisions of which have been steadily eliminated over time but not fully.

Continued: https://virginiamercury.com/2025/05/19/abortion-providers-challenge-fdas-remaining-mifepristone-restrictions-in-federal-court/

USA – RFK Jr. Is Coming for Abortion Pills

And he’s relying on bogus science to make his case.

Julianne McShane, Mother Jones
May 15, 2025

Earlier this month, the Trump administration scored seemingly positive headlines when it asked a federal court to dismiss a case brought by three Republican states seeking to restrict telehealth access to mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication abortion.

Several news outlets claimed in headlines that the administration would “defend” access to the pills, despite the fact that Project 2025 and several of Trump’s top appointees have made it clear that they believe access to mifepristone—which, along with the second drug, misoprostol, now account for more than 60 percent of all abortions that occur nationwide—should be drastically rolled back, as I have previously reported. In reality, the administration merely argued the states do not have standing to sue and did not weigh in on the underlying issue of access to the pills.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/rfk-jr-is-coming-for-abortion-pills/

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

The Forgotten Mother of the Contraceptive Pill

Long overshadowed by more famous names, Katharine Dexter McCormick used her fortune and fierce determination to quietly bankroll one of the most revolutionary inventions in women’s history: the birth control pill.

May 8, 2025
by Josie Cox, Ms. Magazine

Almost exactly three years ago, I spent an afternoon standing outside McCormick Hall, an all-women’s undergraduate residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

It was a quiet day in May. Term had likely ended for the summer. But as a few students and their friends and families trickled in and out of the building, I politely stopped them with a simple question: “Excuse me, do you know who is—or who was—McCormick?”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/05/08/katharine-dexter-mccormick-birth-control/

08.05.2025