Abortion pill mifepristone sparks new pro-life debate as some doctors stress safety concerns

Pro-choice lawmakers, doctors and advocates have argued the science is settled when it comes to the controversial abortion pill mifepristone. They say the drug is safe and needs to be widely available with virtually no restrictions. Even some GOP lawmakers have shown support for retaining women’s access to the pill, which is much more widely available today than it was just a few years ago. 

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has yet to stake out a formal position on how he will approach the controversial abortion pill. Although he took several measures in his first few days in office to prevent taxpayer dollars from funding or promoting abortion, he has yet to respond to pro-life demands to reinstate specific restrictions on mifepristone.

‘The potentially tragic results of these drugs have been illustrated by the recently reported deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller,’ Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, told Fox News Digital. ‘Denying the risks of mifepristone will only ensure that more women like Amber and Candi are left to undergo painful and potentially dangerous drug-induced abortions without the bare minimum quality of medical care.’

While pro-choice advocates have suggested the deaths of Thurman and Miller were the result of anti-abortion laws and the chilling effect they have incurred on women seeking abortions, Francis said their deaths were instead the result of a powerful medication that lacks the necessary safeguards. 

‘Many of the studies that abortion advocates like to quote to state that mifepristone has very few complications don’t actually reflect real world use of mifepristone,’ she said. ‘Most of those studies, women will have had an in-person visit, as well as an ultrasound, actually documenting how far along they are in their pregnancy, as well as ensuring that they did not have an ectopic pregnancy before they receive those drugs. When, in fact, that’s not real-world use right now.’

Francis pointed out that real-world use actually ‘means that they order them online.’

 

When mifepristone was first approved in 2000 by the Food And Drug Administration (FDA), numerous safeguards were put in place. Those included requirements that the medication be dispensed in-person and that patients receive appropriate follow-up care. It also limited the gestational time frame during which pregnant women could use the pill to seven weeks. However, over time, those restrictions were loosened more and more. By 2021, women could get mifepristone without in-person visits, and it was left up to the doctor to trust the patient’s account of how far along her pregnancy was.

‘They’re not seen by any kind of medical professional to confirm their gestational age or to rule out an ectopic pregnancy, which we know happens in one in 50 pregnancies,’ Francis said. ‘If you look at the FDA’s own label – and again, this was when there was still the in-person dispensing requirement – their own label says that one in 25 women will go to the emergency room due to complications related to these drugs. That is not a safe drug. Safe drugs don’t send one in 25 people to the emergency room.’

‘The only way to tell the bleeding, cramping, and pain is from a miscarriage, the abortion pill, or even from an ectopic pregnancy, is to actually do an ultrasound,’ Dr. William Lile, a pro-life OB-GYN who has delivered more than 5,000 babies, told Fox News Digital.   

The removal of in-person visits is a major aspect of the more lax restrictions that people like Francis and Lile want to see reversed. A big reason for that is due to the similarity of the side effects exhibited by both mifepristone usage and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, which have increased due to the growing prevalence of Intrauterane Devices (IUDs) and sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia and gonorrhea, Francis wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.

‘If she has an ectopic pregnancy that’s undiagnosed, she starts having these symptoms. She’s going to think that it’s the result of the abortion drugs that she took, and it’s normal, and she’s going to stay home while she’s bleeding into her abdomen and losing precious time. That could be the difference between life and death,’ Francis said. 

Mifepristone is also prone to causing retained tissue and atypical sepsis as well, something Thurman suffered from before her death.

‘When we know that this drug carries these kinds of complications, we are saying women deserve better care and better oversight when they’re being given these drugs,’ Francis said. ‘These are not benign drugs. Women deserve follow-up care. They deserve ongoing care.’

Pro-choice advocates argue that mifepristone is safe, citing numerous studies showing its safety and effectiveness, including for treating miscarriages, from as far back as 1988. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists call the drug safe and effective for abortion and miscarriage care. 

Autumn Katz, interim director of litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights, called claims against mifepristone ‘false,’ noting they have been ‘thoroughly debunked.’ 

‘It has been used in combination with misoprostol by over 5.9 million patients in the U.S.,’ she said. ‘Numerous studies have repeatedly proven its safety and effectiveness for ending an early pregnancy, and mifepristone is also frequently used as a safe and effective treatment for early miscarriage.’

Fox News Digital spoke to a pro-life emergency room doctor who said he uses mifepristone in conjunction with other drugs to remedy miscarriages. However, according to Lile and Francis, mifepristone’s assistance is not statistically significant, or necessary when treating miscarriages. Neither does it remove the need for in-person visits, they said. 

‘When people think of it outside of the abortion context, they understand how important that in-person evaluation is, how important it is to know exactly how far along someone is,’ Francis said. ‘So that’s what we’re calling for, and [in-person evaluations] being put back into place would not impact a physician’s ability to use that drug to treat miscarriage, if that is their protocol for treating miscarriage.’