Sen. Josh Hawley calls for ban on abortion pill as critics cite decades of safety research
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is pushing to ban the commonly used abortion pill mifepristone.
On Wednesday, Hawley unveiled the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act, during a press conference in Washington, with a companion bill expected to be introduced in the House by Tennessee Rep. Diana Harshbarger.
Hawley’s proposed bill would withdraw approval of mifepristone for abortion under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and make distributing or labeling the drug for pregnancy termination a violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It would also allow for women to sue manufacturers if they say they were harmed after taking the drug.
“This drug called Mifepristone sends 11% of the women who take it to the emergency room with serious life-threatening conditions like hemorrhaging, like internal infections, like sepsis. We removed the drug Vioxx, which is an old anti-inflammatory drug from the market when it caused life-threatening conditions and 0.001% of cases. This is 11% of cases; seven and a half million women have taken this drug,” Hawley told ABC 17 News. “That means hundreds of thousands of women have faced a life-threatening condition. It's just not safe. It is inherently dangerous. Congress should say we're going to ban it for use in abortion.”
Hawley also had several women testify during his Wednesday press conference, who shared stories of suffering serious health consequences after using the drug. One of the women, Shanyce Thomas, said she a serious infection after taking mifepristone that resulted in a partial hysterectomy.
Since the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, an estimated 7.5 million women have used it to terminate pregnancies. It is one of two medications commonly used in medication abortions, accounting for roughly 63 percent of abortions in the U.S since 2023.
However, Hawley’s claim that nearly 11% of patients experienced a serious adverse event within 45 days of taking the drug, has been widely disputed by abortion rights activists, who say it misinterprets insurance data and conflicts with decades of clinical research.
The study, from the Ethics and Public Policy Center states that mifepristone is considerably more dangerous to women than is represented on the FDA-approved drug label and that nearly 6,000 women have been hospitalized as a result of taking it.
Critics argue that the study counts follow-up care and routine medical visits as complications, inflating the reported risk.
Research from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) found it to be safe and effective when used as directed, saying that it is “statistically safer than nearly any other major drug approved by the FDA and yet is regulated more stringently.”
The ACG also stated that data confirmed that the risk of a major adverse event—such as significant infection, excessive blood loss, or hospitalization—is very low for patients and that the risk of death is nearly nonexistent.
Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, criticized Hawley’s proposal telling ABC 17 News in a statement:
“Senator Josh Hawley is once again running from the facts: medication abortion is safe, and Missourians have already made clear they want to make their own health care decisions. Rather than politicizing health care, he should listen to medical experts and the voters he represents. This bill ignores both.”
But Hawley also argued that Mifepristone has been abused.
“It is inherently prone to abuse. Almost a dozen men have been charged in different states across the country with taking the capsule of this drug and lacing a woman's food or drink with it to try and force her into an abortion she doesn't want,” Hawley said. “These guys are scumbags. They absolutely ought to be put behind bars. But the bigger issue here is that this drug is inherently prone to abuse. It is just not safe. Congress ought to say can't be used for abortion.”
Claire Cook-Callen, executive director of Progress MO, called Hawley’s push to ban Mifepristone “the latest step in his ongoing Christian nationalism crusade.”
“In pushing his personal religious agenda on the public, Hawley is purposefully eschewing over 100 peer-reviewed studies and 25 years of scientific data proving the safety and efficacy for abortion and miscarriage care,” Cook-Callen told ABC 17 News in a statement.
Cook-Callen also claimed that Hawley was ignoring the science and his constituents.
"Not only is Hawley ignoring the science, he’s also ignoring the will of the voters back in his 'home' state, which he rarely frequents and more rarely listens to everyday people,” Cook-Callen wrote. “In 2024, a majority of Missouri voters unequivocally approved an amendment enshrining access to abortion and reproductive health care in the state constitution. They did so in an electorate that supported Republican politicians in statewide elections, showing that the people of our state believe access to this vital care transcends political ideology.”
