When the Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade — reversing the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott — pro-life Americans rejoiced. Little did we know the fight was only just beginning. Since then, abortion advocates have dumped millions of dollars in dark money into our states to overturn state laws, and in some cases, state constitutional provisions, protecting life. They’ve relentlessly pushed for pro-abortion judges for state courts and the federal judiciary. But above all, they’ve turned to a drug called mifepristone to bring abortion on demand to every state in the union. If pro-lifers want to protect the innocent unborn, and the health and safety of women, there’s only one thing to do: ban the chemical abortion drug.
Mifepristone first came to market in the United States in 2000, courtesy of the Clinton administration. From the beginning, it was mired in controversy. The drug was a copycat of the infamous French RU-486, which works by essentially inducing a miscarriage. This isn’t contraception. It’s not the morning-after pill. It’s a full-on abortion: the drug’s purpose is to destroy a viable pregnancy.
It was controversial because the drug carries so many side effects. It doesn’t merely kill the baby. It can also cause internal hemorrhaging, infections, sepsis, and other life-threatening conditions in the mother.
The pharma company that introduced it in the United States knew that, and took unusual and extreme measures to protect itself from liability. The name of the company is Danco. It was incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Its board of directors is secret; its investors are secret. Its corporate structure is largely shielded from public view. We do know early backers included George Soros — surprise, surprise — and other far-left activists who loudly backed population control. Their goal was simple: to put a Planned Parenthood in every mailbox in America, by developing a drug that could be shipped anywhere and cause an abortion anytime.
The Clinton administration was also aware of mifepristone’s dangers, and its FDA approval came with significant restrictions. The drug had to be prescribed by a physician. That physician had to see the patient before prescribing it, dispense the drug in-person, and conduct a follow-up assessment. The FDA was also required to keep track of major health events associated with the drug and report them. The agency even slapped a “black box” warning on mifepristone’s label, meant to alert women that the drug came with serious risks.
Over time, however, one liberal administration after another removed these safeguards.
The Obama administration dropped many of the reporting requirements and allowed non-physicians to prescribe the drug. Obama’s FDA also discarded the required follow-up visit.
The Biden administration went further and eliminated the in-person dispensing requirement altogether.
The result? Today, mifepristone can be ordered over the internet from anywhere in the world — many of the most trafficked websites are in India — and mailed to any address in the United States. No meaningful safety protocols remain to protect women’s health, or even police the integrity of the drug itself.
And what you might have expected to happen has happened. The largest study of mifepristone ever conducted found that in nearly 11% of cases, women who take the drug experience a “serious adverse health event” such as sepsis or hemorrhaging. That’s more than one in ten women. Incredibly, this rate is 22 times higher than what drug maker Danco admits to on its label.
Mifepristone’s ubiquity has also led to other horrors. Women across this country have been pressured into taking it by pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, who routinely lie about the effects. And abusive partners — able to order the drug with a simple click — have intimidated or coerced women into taking it and killing babies they wanted to keep.
But of course Danco doesn’t care: it’s making billions. Business is so lucrative, in fact, that mifepristone is the only drug the company makes. One recent piece of public reporting suggested investors’ returns top 450% — even as one in ten women who take the drug face health devastation. What has Danco done to compensate them? Nothing. They’re too busy raking in the cash.
And the far-left abortion crazies who funded Danco, and worked for years to eliminate every last safety restriction, have gotten what they wanted, too. Mifepristone now accounts for 70% of abortions in the United States — a proportion that goes up every year. It is truly abortion on demand. And no matter what voters in the states decide, the number of abortions continues to grow: the drug is available by mail anywhere, irrespective of state laws.
Those harmed are women. And the innocent unborn. At least 7.5 million women have taken mifepristone since the year 2000. That means hundreds of thousands of women sent to emergency rooms or left to cope with life-threatening conditions on their own. And millions of babies lost.
It is time for Congress to act. The last twenty years have made abundantly clear that this drug is inherently dangerous. And inherently prone to abuse. There is a direct solution: Congress should ban mifepristone for use in abortion. And Congress should give every woman harmed by the drug — and we’re talking thousands upon thousands of women — the right to sue Danco and the other drug makers who have lied to them.
Banning mifepristone in abortions is the only realistic way to end this epidemic. The FDA could theoretically reinstate some or all of the older safety restrictions, but as one recent study showed, even with safety restrictions in place, the drug still sends approximately 10% of women to the hospital with serious side effects. And it’s lethal to the baby nearly 100% of the time. Then, too, a future FDA under a liberal president could just take the safety protocols away again.
The real solution is for Congress to act, to permanently stop the drug trade in abortion by barring mifepristone from use in abortions. And to give women their voice back by finally giving them rights against the pharma kingpins.
This is not a sidelight to the fight for life. This is the fight for life. It is the fight of our time. And it cannot wait a day longer.
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U.S. Senator Josh Hawley represents the state of Missouri and serves on the Senate Committees on the Judiciary; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
