Mifepristone is the most common method of abortion in the United States, accounting for well over half of all abortions nationwide. Its widespread use was made possible beginning in 2000, when the FDA approved it as part of a two-drug chemical abortion procedure. Pro-aborts may celebrate mifepristone’s convenience and alleged “safety,” but the drug’s danger is undeniable. Injuries include excessive bleeding, infection, ruptured uteri, and retained “products of conception” (i.e., baby body parts).
In 2016, the FDA stopped requiring abortionists to report injuries from mifepristone, except in cases where women died from the drug. This allows the abortion industry to claim that no data shows that abortion drugs are anything but “safe.” Moreover, abortion providers advise women who experience complications from abortion drugs to tell emergency room doctors they are having a miscarriage, rather than reveal that they are having a chemically induced abortion.
At the same time, the FDA raised the gestational age at which mifepristone can be prescribed, and removed the requirement of in-person dispensing of the deadly drugs. This means more and more women – including young girls – are showing up in hospitals with abortion drug injuries. Doctors treating these injuries may be required to remove baby parts and even finish incomplete abortions.
The abortion industry intentionally lies about mifepristone’s purported safety. In truth, mifepristone is an expedient way to kill babies and evade responsibility for injuries caused to their mothers.
Pro-life doctors who object to being forced to participate in abortion sued the FDA to reverse the agency’s politically motivated approval of the drug, or, at a minimum, to reinstate the original more restrictive protocols for dispensing mifepristone (FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine).
In 2022, US District Court in Amarillo, Texas ruled in favor the pro-life doctors and suspended the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which modified the ruling but retained some restrictions on the use of mifepristone. The DOJ then appealed to the Supreme Court, which, pending full hearing, lifted the remaining restrictions in controversy. Oral argument will be heard in the case on March 26th.
The DOJ alleges that the pro-life doctors do not have legal standing to bring a lawsuit against the FDA. Life Legal is supporting the doctors by briefing the Supreme Court on the nature of the injury these doctors have and will suffer because of the FDA’s actions. We argue that the FDA’s removal of mifepristone safeguards injured the doctors’ rights of conscience to not participate in or be complicit in elective abortion.
Using abortion industry studies, the FDA approved and expanded the use of mifepristone, which directly resulted in more cases of “incomplete” abortions that ER doctors and obstetricians are forced to complete.
Harm to doctors – and of course babies and women – will continue to occur if the Court does not uphold the lower court’s restrictions on mifepristone. One of the doctors testified that, “I have cared for at least a dozen women who have required surgery to remove retained pregnancy tissue after a chemical abortion.”
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