According to a new study from the Ethics and Policy Center, the rate of serious health complications following mifepristone abortions is at least 22 times higher than the number found on current drug labels.
This stunning finding was reached in a paper entitled The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event. The research, released on April 28, was conducted by Jamie Bryan Hall (Director of Data Analysis, Ethics and Public Policy Center) and Ryan T. Anderson (President).
“Women deserve better than the abortion pill,” the authors said in the report.
The comprehensive study was based on analysis of data from an insurance claims database that includes 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023. The key conclusion: “10.93 percent of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion, far greater than the summary figure of ‘less than 0.5 percent’ in clinical trials reported on the drug label.”
Hall and Anderson wrote that the FDA should immediately reinstate stricter patient safety protocols that were in place when mifepristone was first approved in 2000. Unfortunately, under the Obama (2016) and Biden (2023) Administrations, “the FDA chipped away at these initial safeguards, risking women’s health in order to increase access to abortion.”
Reverting to stricter regulations will ensure physician responsibility for women who take the drug under their care, as well as mandate full reporting of its side effects.
Additionally, Hall and Anderson called on the FDA to further investigate the harm mifepristone causes to women and, “based on objective safety criteria, reconsider its approval altogether.”
The shocking statistics in the paper were cited in a forceful appeal from a U.S. Senator to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. In a letter, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) urged Makary to take all appropriate action to restore critical safeguards on the use of mifepristone. Hawley pointed to Dr. Makary’s recent comments that he has “no plans to take action” on mifepristone.
“An alarming new study has revealed that the safety risks of the chemical abortion drug, mifepristone, are far greater than the FDA currently acknowledges,” Hawley wrote. “Just last week, you said that you had ‘no plans to take action’ on mifepristone. Yet during your confirmation hearing, you pledged to me that you would ‘review the totality of the data and ongoing data’ to inform action on the drug. I urge you to follow this new data and take all appropriate action to restore critical safeguards on the use of mifepristone. The health and safety of American women depend on it.”
Anderson, the author and author of five books, including Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing, called on the Trump Administration to safeguard American women with appropriate action.
“This study is the statistical equivalent of a category 5 hurricane hitting the prevailing narrative of the abortion industry,” he said. “It reveals, based on real-world data, the shocking number of women who suffer serious medical consequences because of the abortion pill. The Trump FDA should take immediate action to protect the safety of American women by reinstating the safety regulations that the Obama and Biden Administrations removed.”
Moreover, as Roland Warren, Care Net’s president and CEO, and Vincent DiCaro, Care Net’s Chief Outreach Officer, discussed in a recent episode of CareCast—while the danger the abortion pill presents to women must be addressed, we must also never forget that the most problematic thing about the abortion pill is that it kills unborn children.
Accordingly, we should always lead with this argument. If our argument is only about how unsafe the abortion pill is for women, we could set a trap for ourselves and receive, as a response to our concerns about the abortion pill, just a different abortion pill that is safer for women, but just as deadly to unborn children. As Pro Abundant Life people, we must avoid this trap and always lead with the most important aspect of our position.