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 – 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

USA – ‘Rolling Thunder’: Inside conservatives’ strategy to curb abortion pill access

Abortion opponents hope a new report will spur the GOP to ban abortion pills and defund Planned Parenthood.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
May 7, 2025

The nation’s most influential anti-abortion groups have a new plan to roll back access to the procedure for millions of Americans in what they’re calling the “biggest opportunity for the pro-life movement” since toppling Roe v. Wade.

The effort, which the groups have privately named “Rolling Thunder,” is the movement’s first concerted attempt under the second Trump administration to target abortion pills, and aims to convince the FDA, Congress and courts to crack down on their use.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/07/anti-abortion-pill-gameplan-rolling-thunder-00331933

07.05.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs

Americans United for Life

Angela Vasquez-Giroux

anti-choice anti-science

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice dishonesty

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice junk science

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misogyny

Brittni Frederiksen

Colson Center for Christian Worldview

Dr. Christina Francis

Ethics and Public Policy Center

FDA

Food and Drug Administration

Marjorie Dannenfelser

Marty Makary

mifepristone

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RollingThunder

Ryan Anderson

safety of abortion pills

Students for Life

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

United States

Activism

Anti-choice

USA – The Bad Data Backing Josh Hawley’s Attack on Abortion Pills

A new study being used to call for mifepristone restrictions relies on vague and dubious definitions of drug-related complications.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown
May 5, 2025

The abortion pill mifepristone "is not safe and effective," argue the authors of a new study that uses insurance claim data to examine adverse reactions to the pill. They claim to have found a "serious adverse event" rate of 10.93 percent, and they say this finding justifies renewed restrictions on mifepristone.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) seems to agree. The day the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) released its new mifepristone study, Hawley wrote to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Marty Makary, urging the commissioner to "follow this new data and take all appropriate action to restore critical safeguards on the use of mifepristone."

Continued: https://reason.com/2025/05/05/the-bad-data-backing-josh-hawleys-attack-on-abortion-pills/

05.05.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

anti-choice deception

anti-choice hypocrisy

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misogyny

Food and Drug Administration

Josh Hawley

Marty Makary

misoprostol

safety of abortion pills

United States

Anti-choice

Health

USA – There’s A Dishonest Right-Wing Furor Over Recent Arrests Of Anti-Abortion Activists

Prominent conservatives are claiming the Biden administration launched a "war on pro-lifers" after the Justice Department arrested several protesters for blocking access to abortion clinics.

By Alanna Vagianos
Oct 8, 2022

It’s been a federal crime for nearly 30 years to intimidate or interfere with any person trying to obtain or provide reproductive health care services. But two recent indictments by the Department of Justice for such violations have enraged some influential conservatives, who are now stoking a false narrative about a supposed war against the religious right.

It started with prominent anti-abortion minister Mark Houck, who late last month was arrested on federal charges that he allegedly twice assaulted a 72-year-old patient escort outside of a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia. If proven, it would be a clear violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law that makes it a federal crime to use force or the threat of force to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person trying to obtain or provide reproductive health care services.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/right-wing-arrests-anti-abortion-activists_n_634082dbe4b028164534c4ee

Mark Zuckerberg Let False Anti-Abortion Video Back On Facebook To Mollify GOP: Report

Mary Papenfuss
Mon, October 25, 2021

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intervened to reinstate a false anti-abortion video to assuage conservative Republican politicians, according to internal company documents Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen provided to Congress that The Financial Times examined.

The incident was reportedly one of several instances of Facebook senior executives countermanding company policy to allow American politicians and celebrities to post whatever they wanted despite pleas from employees to moderate the content, according to the documents.

Continued: https://news.yahoo.com/mark-zuckerberg-let-false-anti-014340442.html

The Capitol Rioters’ Disturbing Ties to the March for Life

Several people who stormed the Capitol are linked to the anti-abortion March for Life. Enough with their dangerous anti-abortion rhetoric, writes comic and activist Lizz Winstead.

Lizz Winstead
Published Jan. 29, 2021

On Jan. 6, insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol and brought into sharp focus a threat those of us who have been monitoring right-wing extremists have understood for years. Some of the people who either attended the siege of the Capitol—or played cheerleader for it to their thousands of followers on social media—were the exact same dangerous extremists who harass and threaten patients and doctors daily at reproductive health centers, including some of the biggest stars of the “pro-life” movement.

It was alarming, then, that on Jan. 29, just three weeks after the storming of the Capitol, another D.C. gathering of Trump-loving extremists, one that annually draws tens of thousands, was seemingly moving forward as planned.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-capitol-rioters-disturbing-ties-to-the-march-for-life

USA – Both sides on abortion certain Barrett would restrict, if not overturn, landmark court decision

By Seung Min Kim
Oct. 8, 2020

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett heads into her confirmation hearings next week with a detailed record that has led many liberals and conservatives to believe she would support restricting, if not outright overturning, the landmark decision that guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion.

But as her nomination fight unfurls in an increasingly heated election season, top Republicans — from President Trump to individual senators — appear to be playing down the impact Barrett’s confirmation would have on the fate of abortion rights in the United States.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-court-trump-barrett/2020/10/08/a82f4ace-0973-11eb-a166-dc429b380d10_story.html