During today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) urged President Trump’s Associate Attorney General nominee, Stanley Woodward, to work with State Attorneys General and others to bring about the reinstatement of longstanding safety standards for the abortion drug mifepristone, which accounts for 70 percent of abortions in the United States.
Senator Hawley highlighted how the Biden Administration rolled back safety protocols for the drug, allowing women to administer their own abortions totally unsupervised. A recent study shows that over 10% of women who are prescribed mifepristone experience a serious adverse health event such as infection, hemorrhaging, sepsis, or another life-threatening event that leads them to go to the emergency room. That is a level of risk 22 times higher than what the FDA label currently admits.
“Any limits on the drug imposed by voters at the state level, consistent with the Dobbs decision, are automatically overridden by what Joe Biden’s FDA decided to do,” Senator Hawley said.
“I hope that the Department of Justice will work with these states and will also vindicate the rights of voters to decide these issues and the rights of states to protect their citizens,” he continued. “I just can’t imagine why the Department would want to defend the abortion regulations of Joe Biden, who was the most rabidly pro-abortion president in American history—very different from our current president, who has been the most pro-life president.”
Senator Hawley has been a leading voice in reinstating mifepristone regulations. Last week, he secured a commitment from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. that he would review “alarming” new data on the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. RFK Jr. also stated that in light of the new data, the Food and Drug Administration label for mifepristone should change to accurately reflect the adverse effects of the drug. He also sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging the Justice Department to reconsider its defense of the Biden Administration’s policy on mifepristone.
Missouri is leading the effort to reimpose safeguards on mifepristone nationwide.
Watch the full hearing here.