On October 3, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed his bafflement over the fact that the FDA had approved another chemical drug.
"This is shocking," Hawley wrote in a post on X. "[The] FDA has just approved ANOTHER chemical abortion drug, when the evidence shows chemical abortion drugs are dangerous and even deadly for the mother. And of course 100% lethal to the child."
He's correct, of course. A recent study showed that 11% of women who use chemical abortion drugs face risks of serious complications, and here's what Townhall reported at the time:
In recent years, "medication abortions,” also known as “chemical abortions,” have skyrocketed. This abortion method occurs when a pregnant woman takes two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, to terminate the life of her unborn child. The first pill stops the baby from growing, killing it, and the latter expunges the unborn child from the mother’s body.
According to the most recent data provided by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, 63 percent of abortions of all clinician-provided abortions in 2023 in states without total abortion bans were medication abortions.
One topic the pro-abortion lobby doesn’t touch on is the amount of women who suffer from dangerous health effects as a result of taking mifepristone, the “abortion pill.”
According to a report published this week, nearly 11 percent of women who have taken a chemical abortion pill in recent years have experienced a serious health event as a result. This ranges from infections to sepsis.
Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America held a media call on October 8 to discuss this development and to demand immediate federal action to stop the proliferation of these dangerous abortion drugs.
SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser said, "Let's just start by saying that the Biden era, COVID-era decision to allow abortion drugs to be sent through the mail without in-person doctor visits has been a disaster for women. It's been a disaster for...state sovereignty on the part of pro-life states, and a disaster for babies, of course."
She noted that babies are aborted at a much higher rate because of the lax rules surrounding abortion drugs, even after the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Dannenfelser also said the pill poses a "new form of domestic violence," too, noting domestic abusers can obtain those medications in the mail with no regard for state pro-life laws. She also warned that the FDA's "flooding markets with more and cheaper abortion drugs, with a generic off-label drug being approved just last week" would lead to "more unborn lives will be vulnerable, more women will be sent to the ER, more adverse effects, and more undermining of the sovereignty of pro-life states that have passed protections that protect unborn children, and certainly are intended to protect women."
She also called on the FDA to "reverse course" and "immediately end the Biden policy allowing the mail order of drugs and taking the doctor out of the process."
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said, "I've certainly joined my colleagues in asking the FDA and Secretary Kennedy to withdraw the Biden administration rules. I filed a new lawsuit yesterday on that issue, to request and to challenge the Biden administration rules and request this administration to withdraw them."
Murrill said the Biden-era rules are a "disaster for women" and that they've been used on multiple occasions to poison women and coerce abortions or induce abortions against their consent."
One such woman was also on the call. Catherine Herring said her story started in February 2022, when she separated from her husband. She found out she was pregnant shortly thereafter and shared that news with her husband and their counselor.
"We had a six-year-old and a two-year-old at the time, and she [the counselor] suggested maybe we take some time as a family. We did that, and the very next day after spring break," Herring continued, "my husband appeared with breakfast in bed for me."
Herring said her husband encouraged her to drink lots of water. "It felt a little off," Herring said. "He would not leave the house until I finished the entire cup." It was then that she noticed the water was not clear, but "creamy" looking. Herring said that about half an hour later, she had "super sharp pains in her stomach" and then became seriously ill.
"Originally, I thought maybe it was food poisoning. What had I eaten the night before?" Herring said. She got sick again, and that's when she knew something was "horribly wrong." Herring called a pregnancy hotline, which walked her through an abortion pill reversal regimen. Despite that, Herring ended up in the ER with kidney failure after a slew of tests, and doctors did a sonogram. Thankfully, the reversal regimen worked, and her daughter's heartbeat was strong. Her husband tried to poison her six more times with the abortion drugs, and he was arrested in May 2022.
"I hope that by continuing to share my story, that women will be able to identify the threats of coerced and forced abortion, and that they will be able to better protect themselves and their children," Herring added.
Charlotte Lozier Institute researcher and OBGYN Dr. Ingrid Skop noted that women experience complications four times more often with chemical abortion drugs than with surgical abortions, saying this causes "at least 1 in 20 women to require emergency room care, and a similar number to need surgical completion for hemorrhage, infection, or retained pregnancy tissue."
"When the drugs are taken in the second trimester instead of the first, as many as four in ten women will require surgery."
Dr. Skopp also said, "Women are being told not to report that they have taken abortion drugs if they should seek care in an emergency room. And I've cared for dozens of such women." This leads to miscoding in emergency rooms and hides the damage done by abortion drugs.
"Our research documents that more than 80% of abortion complications seen in ERs are miscoded as complications from miscarriages," Dr. Skop said.
Dr. Skop said pro-abortion advocates want to remove doctors from the equation because it's about "convenience for those who cynically want to end the life of every child conceived unintentionally, even if his mother is collateral damage."
She also said women are "overwhelming" the emergency rooms, and that "70% of them have the highest acuity coding" when they come in for treatment.
AG Murrill noted that CA Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed legislation that would keep the name of patients and prescribers off mail-order abortion drugs. "And at the end of the day, you know, we're going to… it's going to make it harder for us to investigate and prosecute these cases," she said. Murill also cited a case in Louisiana where the mother of a teen girl ordered drugs from NYC and coerced the pregnant 16-year-old to take the medication, leading to her losing the pregnancy. Despite an LA grand jury indictment, New York Governor Kathy Hochul refuses to extradite the provider who provided the medication.
To stop this abuse of women and children, Dannenfelser said, "Immediately, immediately restore the Trump-1 rules surrounding the distribution of this drug. Reintroduce the doctor into the conversation, and you will not have any more stories like Catherine's being told."
She also demanded HHS Secretary Kennedy why the promised studies on abortion drugs haven't happened yet, and called on the administration to complete them.
Dr. Skop concluded by saying, "I do hope that the FDA will do the hard work that it takes to protect women to find out what is truly happening in our country today."
Women in America deserve answers and protection from these harmful Biden-era rules.