After facing pressure from a pro-life Republican senator, the Trump administration official responsible for overseeing the nation’s drug approval and regulation policies has promised to launch a full-scale investigation into the abortion pill, mifepristone — an announcement met with joy by the nation’s right-to-life movement.

“FDA is committed to safeguarding public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and quality of the products it regulates,” wrote Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary in a June 2 letter to Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the senator revealed on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X. “As the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, I am committed to conducting a review of mifepristone and working with the professional career scientists at the Agency who review this data.”

Pro-life advocates have long asked health officials to review the safety of mifepristone, since successive Democratic administrations have loosened restrictions about its disbursement and stopped counting adverse effects, asking doctors only to report deaths directly attributable to the chemical.

“Praise God that the FDA has once again confirmed that they are reviewing the safety data on mifepristone. The impact of this drug on all women who take it has never been fully investigated by the FDA,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The latest data show that nearly 11% of women have a serious event within 45 days of taking the drug, including ER visits, infection, hemorrhage, incomplete abortion, and sepsis.”

The promise represents a turnabout for Makary, who announced at the April 24 Semafor World Economy Summit that he had “no plans to take action” to curtail mifepristone, the first pill of the two-drug cocktail that induces a chemical abortion. “This is exceptionally disappointing to say the least,” wrote Hawley at the time. “Not a good beginning at the FDA.” Makary’s latest pledge came in response to an April 28 letter by Hawley, calling on the Trump administration to reinstate abortion pill protocols to protect women’s health and safety which had been repealed by the Biden-Harris administration.

Polls show Americans favor health and safety measures to regulate the abortion pill. A full 92% of registered voters in Gen Y and Gen Z support laws requiring an ultrasound screening before dispensing the abortion pill, to save lives from ectopic pregnancy, according to a poll taken earlier this year by the Demetree Institute for Pro-life Advancement. The poll also found:

• 92% support requiring blood tests for RH factor, to preserve the mother’s future fertility.
• 90% support conducting tests to determine the environmental impact the abortion pill has on the nation’s drinking water supply.
• Two-thirds (66%) of young voters support dispensing the two-drug, abortion pill cocktail only in person to assure that abusers, irresponsible boyfriends, or human traffickers do not obtain the drug to kill a mother’s child without her knowledge.

Chemical abortion accounted for 63% of all abortions in states where the practice is legal in 2023 — up from 53% in 2020 — according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

The commitment follows Hawley’s asking Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to do a “top-to-bottom review” of mifepristone. “At the very least, the label should be changed,” replied Kennedy. “I’ve asked Marty Makary at the FDA to do a complete review and report back.”

Kennedy’s commitment echoes his statements from the beginning of the administration. “We need to understand the safety of every drug, mifepristone and every other drug,” said RFK Jr. during his confirmation hearings in January. “It’s against everything we believe in in this country, that patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events.” President Trump has “made it clear to me that he wants me to look at the safety issues and I’ll ask NIH [National Institutes of Health] and FDA to do that.”

Pro-life advocates sued to overturn the 2000 approval of the drugs in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The abortion pill’s FDA “approval happened as the result of the Clinton administration’s pro-abortion agenda and the Clintons’ general disregard for women,” said Szoch. “Americans deserve better.” The Supreme Court unanimously rejected their petition on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not have standing but, in a return to the narrow procedural decisions of the Roberts court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion did not rule on the underlying merits of the case. “FDA needs to release the names of all experts who reviewed the abortion pill so we can see what their bias was,” said Carole Novielli of Live Action.

“I look forward to Dr. Makary’s report on the safety of the drug which, if done truthfully and with scientific accuracy, should result in mifepristone’s removal from the market,” concluded Szoch.