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mifepristone
Medication Abortion Is Safe—Political Attacks on Healthcare Are Not
If the FDA further restricts access to abortion pills, more people, especially those in marginalized communities, will die.
Jun 05, 2025
Next to the abortion pills in my medicine cabinet lies a potentially risky drug: Tylenol. Ironically, while this common pain reliever is widely accepted, safer, life-saving drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol have been under relentless attack by Republican lawmakers.
For decades, these pills, Food and Drug Administration-approved after rigorous testing and proven safe through extensive studies, have been trusted by millions of physicians and pregnant people to treat miscarriages, carry out abortions, or address various medical issues. Yet, the necessity and widespread use of abortion pills seem to elude the wisdom of lawmakers and health secretaries, and highlight a troubling disconnect between the realities faced by patients and the decisions made by lawmakers.
For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently directed the FDA to review regulations based on a demonstrably flawed study funded by the organization responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. This study has not undergone peer review or been published in any medical journal, highlighting its misguided methodology and analysis. For instance, it inappropriately cites bleeding and follow-up exams as adverse effects when, in reality, bleeding is an intended effect, and experts recommend follow-up exams.
The science and testimonies are clear: Abortion pills are normal, safe, and necessary.
My abortion saved my life. I am at high risk of death during pregnancy, and my sister, who shares the same medical syndromes, nearly died in childbirth. Mentally, I would have preferred to end my life rather than continue a pregnancy with my then-abusive boyfriend or pass down incurable, painful medical conditions. Emotionally, I could not handle the responsibilities of motherhood. I believe it is the most demanding and beautiful role on Earth, but it must remain a choice.
Every day that the government forces someone to remain pregnant against their will is another day the United States commits a crime against humanity, according to the United Nations. One in four people who can get pregnant will have at least one abortion in their lifetime, with nearly two-thirds of them relying on abortion pills.
I advocate for abortion patients daily and hear their harrowing stories of reproductive and medical distress. For many of them who want to save their life, preserve their liberty, or pursue happiness, abortion pills are their only option, solely due to their address and station in life. For example, consider two women who look down at a positive pregnancy test weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. One is an Oregonian; the other is a Floridian. The Oregonian can access abortion pills or have a D&C within a day or two, well past an unreasoned “heartbeat” law. Meanwhile, the Floridian may have no choice but to rely on abortion pills to protect her life, risking a future where her children could become orphans, as the majority of people who have an abortion are already parents.
If the FDA further restricts access to abortion pills, more people, especially those in marginalized communities, will die. Victims of abuse will be forced to carry pregnancies resulting from incest and rape. More people will drop out of college, and more unwanted children will be born into neglect. These are not mere possibilities; they are certainties based on the experiences of hundreds of thousands of people.
People in blue states may mistakenly believe the FDA’s decision wouldn’t impact their rights, but they would be wrong. Revoking or restricting access to abortion pills would have a ripple effect, overwhelming health centers in blue states with patients from red states. Worse yet, it could eliminate access to abortion pills entirely, effectively reducing abortion resources by 66%. Extremist Republican lawmakers are banking on rolling back our right to abortion pills as a stepping stone to enacting a nationwide abortion ban, followed by the restriction of contraception rights and the falsification or elimination of sex education. This “review” is all part of a plan to control our reproductive rights, finances, health, education, autonomy, and destiny.
Reproductive restrictions for anyone create reproductive restrictions for everyone. The science and testimonies are clear: Abortion pills are normal, safe, and necessary. More than 7 in 10 Americans support access to medication abortion, including half of Republicans.
Just as we should have been more vocal when the Trump administration withdrew from the World Health Organization and defunded cancer research, we must be vigilant about their strategy to roll back reproductive rights. I urge you to share your opinion, call your representatives, and demand that they use their leverage, platform, and influence to speak out and pressure the Department of Health and Human Services to end its misguided review of these safe and vital medications. Together, we can push back against these unjust restrictions and protect the human rights, health, and dignity of the people.
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Republicans Are Trying, But They Can’t Stop Abortion Pills
Despite RFK Jr.’s review of mifepristone, two things will remain true: Abortions pills will still be extremely safe, and abortion pills will still be available—everywhere.
May 20, 2025
In a disturbing advancement of the Project 2025 playbook for eradicating abortion, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is using the release of a new pseudo-study as a pretense for the Food and Drug Administration to review mifepristone’s safety and efficacy. The use of this widely discredited self-published report is a clear political maneuver by the Trump administration and anti-abortion extremists to curb access to telehealth abortion and end access to mifepristone more widely, against the scientific evidence and the will of the American public.
I am a public health researcher and abortion access advocate and have been tracking access to the abortion pill since it was first approved in France in 1988. I feel confident that, regardless of the outcome of this illegitimate review, two things will remain true: Abortions pills will still be extremely safe, and abortion pills will still be available—everywhere.
Abortion pills are safe. Period. The fact that Secretary Kennedy has asked the FDA to reevaluate the medications based on a single, unpublished junk science report is absurd. We have mountains of data and decades of clinical experience documenting their safety, whether provided through an in-person visit at a clinic or, since 2020, via telehealth. The World Health Organization has also said that abortion pills are safe even when taken without medical supervision, also known as self-managed abortion. Data support the safety of all of these forms of access.
As activists and clinicians expand these new routes of access to abortion pills, we are providing an immediate, practical solution for people who need abortion access, and thereby reducing the harm that abortion bans create.
Abortion pills are everywhere. As courts and legislatures have been systematically blocking access to abortion across the country, clinicians and activists—myself included—have been setting up and illuminating innovative routes of access that reach people where they are with safe abortion access, including in states with restrictions. As a result of our collective efforts, abortion pills are now readily available by mail for $150 or less—and free for those who can’t afford any amount—in all 50 states, even states with bans. Access routes currently include telehealth from U.S. providers operating from states with laws that shield them from prosecution, international telehealth services that mail pills to the U.S., community networks that send pills by mail for free, and e-commerce vendors that mail pills to all states.
An organization I co-founded, Plan C, tracks these different services to learn about their offerings, including whether they do a medical screening, what type of pills they offer, and how much they cost. Our ongoing investigations—which include mystery shopping and laboratory testing to verify that the pills are real—document a rich ecosystem of abortion pill access. These are real services providing practical, affordable, medically-safe abortion access, even in states with bans. They are all discoverable online. We index and share this information through our Guide to Pills so that people can learn about this ecosystem, and those who are seeking abortions know that they still have options.
These routes of access, combined with the clinic-based care options that exist in states that still allow it, have been so successful in reaching people that there are now even more abortions occurring in the United States than prior to the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Guttmacher, a leading abortion research organization, reports that clinician-provided abortions in the United States rose by more than 100,000 between 2020 and 2024, and that figure does not even include self-managed abortions or abortions facilitated by telehealth shield providers prescribing across state lines into states with bans. The Society of Family Planning also has been documenting abortion post-Roe and reports that these shield providers are serving approximately 10,000 people per month in states that totally or partially ban access to care.
As activists and clinicians expand these new routes of access to abortion pills, we are providing an immediate, practical solution for people who need abortion access, and thereby reducing the harm that abortion bans create, particularly for populations underserved by healthcare systems. We are also showing a new way forward for modern abortion access and laying the groundwork for eventual policy change (which will likely only be possible after our U.S. democracy is restored).
This scenario has already played out in other countries, with resulting improvements in abortion access. For instance, it was largely based on the experiences of patients in Ireland who received abortion pills by mail from Women on Web to safely terminate their pregnancies that parliament liberalized abortion access. In Mexico, the widespread grassroots sharing of information about how to use misoprostol—a widely available ulcer medication—for abortion, ultimately paved the way to policy reform, with abortion pills now officially registered in the country.
For decades, abortion pills have been so severely restricted by politics and overregulation that envisioning a radically different future in which the pills are universally available by mail—or even over the counter—is difficult for most. But this future is coming. Many would say it is largely already here. And, what is particularly notable, given the current FDA safety review based on fabricated claims about the “dangers” of abortion pills, is that these new, modern routes of access are possible precisely because abortion pills are so safe. They are safer than Tylenol, safer than Viagra, and research has demonstrated time and again that they are absolutely safe enough to put directly in the hands of the person who needs them.
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Abortion Rights Defenders 'Sound the Alarms' Over RFK Jr. Attack on Mifepristone
"Hawley is pointing to new junk science to motivate RFK Jr. and FDA to review the science on mifepristone," said one public health scientist. "The science is clear: Mifepristone is safe."
May 15, 2025
Abortion rights defenders and scientists expressed deep concern after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s remarks about mifepristone, a key medication used to end pregnancies, at a Wednesday congressional hearing.
During the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) inquired about the secretary's previous pledge to conduct "top-to-bottom review" of mifepristone, asking, "Do you continue to stand by that and don't you think that this new data shows that the need to do a review is, in fact, very pressing?"
Kennedy, one of President Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet picks, responded by describing the data cited by Hawley as "alarming," suggesting that "the label should be changed," and confirming that he has asked Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), "to do a complete review and to report back."
Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, posted the exchange on social media. She said that "Hawley is pointing to new junk science," and research has made clear "mifepristone is safe."
Hawley is pointing to new junk science to motivate RFK Jr. and FDA to review the science on mifepristone. I've been studying #abortion safety for a decade. The science is clear: mifepristone is safe. Let me tell you about a couple of **peer-reviewed and published** studies I've done... 🧪
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— Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH ( @ushma.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 9:20 PM
In one study of Upadhyay's studies, "among 11,000 medication abortions, less than a third of one percent (0.3%) had a serious adverse event," the expert noted. In another from last year, she continued, "we found that telehealth abortion was just as safe and effective as published estimates of in-person care. Serious adverse events were 0.25%."
However, anti-abortion groups have seized on the paper cited by Hawley—published in April by the think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center—to pressure the Trump administration to restrict mifepristone further, or even remove it from the market.
The April paper conflicts with a mountain of research. A 2023 New York Timesreview found that "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."
Upadhyay said Wednesday that "one crappy report cannot silence decades of peer-reviewed high-quaility published research."
Other critics of RFK Jr.'s comments similarly stressed medical conclusions about mifepristone's safety.
"Mifepristone has a 25-year record of safety and efficacy under the FDA's watch, but now anti-abortion extremists are peddling junk science in an effort to deny people access to it," the group Power to Decide said on social media Thursday. "The reality is that medication abortion is safe, widely used basic healthcare."
The Center for Reproductive Rights also responded on social media, declaring, "SOUND THE ALARMS!"
"Let us be clear: President Trump, who once suggested injecting bleach, should not be making decisions about our healthcare, and RFK Jr. should not be interfering with our ability to access medication that's been PROVEN SAFE AND EFFECTIVE," the center said. "In putting this target on mifepristone—and therefore on abortion access at large—Trump's administration is making it clear that they do not care about science, or our health and safety. They only care about taking away our rights. But we refuse to let that happen."
"We'll be in court on Monday, fighting to protect mifepristone and make sure this VITAL, LIFESAVING medication is accessible and available to anyone who needs it," the center added, referring to oral arguments for Whole Woman's Health Alliance v. FDA, a case aimed at eliminating restrictions that impede access to mifepristone.
The ACLU pointed out in a Wednesday statement that the "pseudo-science paper" at the center of Hawley and Kennedy's exchange echoes calls made in Project 2025—a Heritage Foundation-led guide for a far-right overhaul of the federal goverment, from which Trump unsuccessfully tried to distance himself on the campaign trail—to severely restrict access to medication abortion.
"Secretary Kennedy just revealed that he has ordered the FDA to consider making it harder for people to get medication abortions based on propaganda pushed out by a Project 2025 sponsor," said Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project. "Even leading anti-abortion advocates admit this junk science is 'not a study in the traditional sense,' and is 'not conclusive proof of anything,' but that clearly won't stop extremist politicians from waving it around as a basis to restrict abortion."
"We should all be scared if our access to safe, FDA-approved medications turns on President Trump's gut instinct rather than credible scientific evidence," she warned. "This new FDA review has nothing to do with science and everything to do with teeing up nationwide restrictions on abortion."
Kaye added that "if the FDA moves forward with this politically motivated review, that is a dangerous sign that the president is going back on his promises to voters not to restrict abortion access even further."
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