Sen. Ted Cruz led a group of lawmakers in calling on the Food and Drug Administration to remove the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone from the market.
In a letter Tuesday to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, the 20 senators said the drug has had a “devastating impact” on women and children in the U.S. ever since its approval in 2000 under pro-abortion President Bill Clinton. Dozens of members of the House joined the letter, bringing the total number of signatures to 91.
They asked Hahn to classify mifepristone as an “immanent hazard to the public health,” noting how it has been used to end more than 3.7 million unborn babies’ lives and led to 24 maternal deaths and at least 4,195 complications, according to the Catholic News Service.
Their letter comes as the abortion industry and its allies in the Democratic Party are pushing for the exact opposite. They want the drug to be available by telemedicine and mail-order, meaning a woman may never see a doctor in person or receive vital tests and an ultrasound prior to ending her unborn baby’s life.
Currently, the abortion drug is classified under the FDA Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS) list, which includes specific requirements for high-risk drugs. In the case of the abortion pill, abortion facilities must provide the drug in-person after necessary tests and screenings and be prepared to treat the woman or refer her to someone who can if she suffers complications.
Pro-abortion groups recently challenged FDA regulations, claiming they put women at unnecessary risk during the coronavirus pandemic because women must go to an abortion facility for the drug.
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A federal judge blocked the FDA from enforcing the regulations in July.
However, Cruz and the other senators described the lawsuit as an “opportunistic ploy to expand access to abortion” – one that could further jeopardize the lives of women and children.
“… it is by now nakedly obvious that the abortion industry and its allies in the media, billionaire philanthropic circles and special interest groups have wanted an unregulated and demedicalized abortion pill since the moment the FDA first approved it in 2000,” their letter states.
They pointed to studies showing that the abortion drug has a four-times higher risk of complications than surgical abortion in the first trimester, and up to 7 percent of abortions via the drug fail and require a follow-up surgical abortion.
“We believe this deadly pill should never have been approved, yet the abortion industry was politically rewarded with an accelerated approval process normally reserved for high-risk drugs that address life-threatening illnesses like AIDS,” the senators wrote. “As you are surely aware, pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness, and the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease.”
In addition to taking the drug off the American market, Cruz and the other senators urged the FDA protect women and children from abusers and sexual predators by cracking down on foreign companies that are illegally selling the abortion drug.
They pointed to a recent Wisconsin criminal case where a man allegedly bought the abortion drug illegally online and slipped it into his pregnant girlfriend’s drink after she refused to have an abortion.
They also asked the FDA to investigate the “highly suspect” ethics of the TelAbortion experiment by Gynuity, which is mailing abortion drugs to women in 13 states.
“In addition to placing the lives of American women and children at risk by offering their clinical study to girls as young as 10 years old, they use women in Burkina Faso in their second trimester as research subjects, despite the high risk of infection and uterine rupture – this is also a region where emergency services and blood products for transfusions are in short supply,” they wrote.
Joining Cruz in signing the letter were Senate Pro-Life Caucus chair Steve Daines, of Montana, Sens. Joni Ernst, of Iowa, Kelly Loeffler, of Georgia, Mike Lee, of Utah, Rob Portman, of Ohio, Cindy Hyde-Smith, of Mississippi, Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and others.
Cruz said U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, of Georgia, and more than 70 other House members also sent a letter to the FDA commissioner, asking him to remove the abortion pill from the market.
Abortion activists are downplaying the risks, but the consequences of de-regulating the abortion drug already are being seen in England.
In March, the British government temporarily allowed the abortion drugs to be mail-ordered during the pandemic. And already there are numerous reports of health and safety problems – including at least two women’s deaths. In another case, authorities are investigating how a woman who was 28-weeks pregnant received the abortion drugs in the mail and used them to abort her viable, late-term unborn baby. The drug is supposed to be used to abort unborn babies only up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
