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

Emboldened anti-abortion groups create wishlist for second Trump term

‘Make America pro-life again’ legislation includes banning abortion pills entirely and outlawing telehealth abortions

Carter Sherman
Sun 17 Nov 2024

The anti-abortion movement is ready for its comeback in 2025.

With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, complete with a Republican-dominated Congress, anti-abortion groups are unfurling ambitious lists of policies they hope to see enacted under a sympathetic administration.

In the two years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the movement has largely been relegated to playing defense. Popular support of abortion rights surged, while red-state voters defended abortion rights through ballot measures and many Republicans downplayed their opposition to the procedure.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/17/anti-abortion-groups-trump-2025

Anti-abortion centers raked in $1.4bn in year Roe fell, including federal money

Exclusive: memo shows anti-abortion pregnancy centers received at least $344m in government money in 2022

Carter Sherman
Wed 14 Feb 2024

Anti-abortion facilities raked in at least $1.4bn in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, the year Roe v Wade fell – a staggering haul that includes at least $344m in government money, according to a memo analyzing the centers’ tax documents that was compiled by a pro-abortion rights group and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

These facilities, frequently known as anti-abortion pregnancy centers or crisis pregnancy centers, aim to convince people to keep their pregnancies. But in the aftermath of Roe’s demise, the anti-abortion movement has framed anti-abortion pregnancy centers as a key source of aid for desperate women who have lost the legal right to end their pregnancies and been left with little choice but to give birth.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/14/anti-abortion-centers-funding

The abortion myths Republicans are recycling to reframe a losing issue

Anti-abortion activists lost every referendum on the issue in 2022 and the right is scrambling to find a way to talk about a political hot potato

Carter Sherman
Wed 27 Sep 2023

The post-Roe v Wade battle over abortion rights may just torpedo Republicans’ shot at the White House next year, and they know it.

Anti-abortion activists lost every abortion-related voter referendum last year, while ire over the fall of Roe has been credited with boosting Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Now, Republicans in the presidential primary are scrambling to figure out how to talk about and legislate abortion. But they’re regurgitating some common anti-abortion myths to make their case.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/27/abortion-myths-republicans

USA – Onslaught of new abortion restrictions looms in reddest of states

New state legislative sessions likely to bring fresh efforts to restrict, penalize or altogether ban the procedure

Poppy Noor
Tue 13 Dec 2022

In Nebraska, a total abortion ban could be on the horizon. In Florida, the gestational limit for abortions could drop from 15 weeks to 12. Elsewhere, lawmakers have abortion pills in their sights. When Roe v Wade fell, most states were no longer in legislative session, meaning the term during which they usually write and pass bills had ended. In January, state legislatures will reconvene in an entirely new reality, one where conservative lawmakers are no longer constrained by the constitutional right to abortion once assured by Roe.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/13/abortion-restrictions-us-state-legislatures

13.12.2022