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 – One Thing the Failed Attempt to Ban the Abortion Pill Did

The more anti-abortion activists attacked mifepristone, the more women flocked to use it.

BY CARRIE N. BAKER
JUNE 18, 2024

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit, FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, that tried to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone based on false allegations that the medication was dangerous. The justices ruled that the plaintiffs—anti-abortion doctors and dentists who had never prescribed mifepristone and hadn’t treated women who had used the medication—did not have legal standing to bring the case. In a moment when the high court is understood to be highly politicized, the 9–0 ruling stood out as definitive, confirming the legality of the medication nationwide.

Although some evidence indicates that the case spread disinformation about the safety of abortion pills, the suit had unintended consequences. The demonization efforts have wound up being one giant publicity campaign for a medication that, for so many years, most women didn’t even know was an option.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/abortion-pill-case-taught-women-about-mifepristone.html

A New Study on Medication Abortion Refutes the Arguments Conservatives Are Taking to the Supreme Court

A study of more than 6,000 medication abortions obtained through telehealth found 98 percent were effective and 99.8 percent were safe.

JULIANNE MCSHANE, Mother Jones
Feb 16, 2024

A key argument from anti-abortion activists bringing a case to the Supreme Court is that medication abortion—which accounts for more than half of all abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute—is unsafe and ineffective.

A new study provides even more evidence that this is not true and that medication abortion is just as safe when it’s prescribed virtually as in person. Published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, the study examined more than 6,000 medication abortions that people from 20 states and Washington, D.C. obtained from three virtual clinics between April 2021 and January 2022. Researchers found that about 98 percent of them were effective in terminating pregnancies without any additional interventions and that 99.8 percent were safe and “not followed by serious adverse events.”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/a-new-study-on-medication-abortion-refutes-the-arguments-conservatives-are-taking-to-the-supreme-court/

16.02.2024

Commentary

Charlotte Lozier Institute

Dana Johnson

Food and Drug Administration

Ibis Reproductive Health

medication abortion

mifepristone

retractions of anti-choice studies

safety of abortion pills

USA – Medication abortion via telehealth is just as safe and effective as with a clinic visit, study shows

By Jen Christensen, CNN
Thu February 15, 2024

Research has long found that medication abortion is safe and effective, but a new study shows that to be true even when the patient gets the medicine through a telehealth appointment.

Medication abortion, also known as medical abortion, is the method by which someone ends their pregnancy using pills rather than a surgical procedure. It’s the most common form of abortion in the United States.

Continued; https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/15/health/medication-abortion-telehealth/index.html

15.02.2024

safety of abortion pills

telehealth abortion

telemedicine abortion

Are Abortion Pills Safe? Here’s the Evidence.

By Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Jonathan Corum, Malika Khurana and Ashley Wu
April 1, 2023

More than 100 scientific studies, spanning continents and decades, have examined the effectiveness and safety of mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills that are commonly used in the United States. All conclude that the pills are a safe method for terminating a pregnancy.

In consultation with medical researchers, The New York Times reviewed these 101 studies, which together covered more than 124,000 abortions in the first trimester.

Unlocked: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/01/health/abortion-pill-safety.html

Abortion pills are just as safe to prescribe based on a patient’s medical history as after an in-person exam, new research finds

Published: March 21
Ushma Upadhyay

For many people, accessing abortion care can be a major challenge. Abortion services are usually only available in certain clinics with specialized equipment like ultrasounds, often requiring long-distance travel to get there. When medication abortion, or abortion with pills, was introduced to the U.S. in 2000, it offered a more accessible option to end pregnancy.

However, medication abortion was initially highly regulated and could only be dispensed in person at abortion clinics. Guidelines also required an ultrasound to confirm that the patient was less than 11 weeks pregnant and not ectopic, meaning having a pregnancy where the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus and can result in a life-threatening miscarriage.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/abortion-pills-are-just-as-safe-to-prescribe-based-on-a-patients-medical-history-as-after-an-in-person-exam-new-research-finds-179622

Prescribing the abortion pill without restrictions is safe and effective, study finds

Researchers say Canada's experience offers a roadmap for other countries

Date: December 8, 2021
Source: University of British Columbia

Abortion remains safe after Canada removed restrictions on the medical abortion pill mifepristone in November 2017.

That's one of the key findings from a UBC-led study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Continued: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211208182541.htm

The Future of the Abortion Pill

FDA’s regulation of medication abortion must be guided by science, not politics.

Jan 26, 2021
Jasmine Wang

Erectile dysfunction drugs have a mortality rate nearly four times greater than Mifeprex, otherwise known as the abortion pill. But despite being less safe, erectile dysfunction drugs are available over the counter at pharmacies. Mifeprex, by contrast, remains one of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) most heavily regulated drugs—and is even more restricted than fentanyl, an opioid.

This divergence in the regulation of Mifeprex compared to other drugs stems from highly politicized debates over abortion and reproductive rights. FDA’s regulation of Mifeprex, however, should be informed by science, not politics. Despite a demonstrated safety record, Mifeprex remains subject to restrictions that significantly limit its availability to consumers—restrictions that should be reserved for the most dangerous of drugs.

Continued: https://www.theregreview.org/2021/01/26/wang-future-abortion-pill/

The FDA approved the abortion pill 20 years ago. It’s time to make it available via telehealth

By USHMA D. UPADHYAY
SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

Twenty years ago this month, the Food and Drug Administration approved a medication destined to become known as the abortion pill. Mifepristone, then called RU486, was going to change everything about abortion — it would expand access and remove the stigma.

I remember devouring the news because this little pill was going to give women reproductive autonomy and let them control if and when they have children. At the time, I was just starting my Ph.D. in public health. The news inspired and exhilarated me, and I knew that the abortion pill is what I wanted to focus my career on.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/24/make-abortion-pill-available-via-telehealth/