BREAKING: The Trump Administration is "Reviewing" Abortion Pills
The FDA and HHS just announced their next move in the war against mifepristone
While the country is distracted by Donald Trump’s obscene lie that Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism, the administration is making their next major move against abortion pills. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says it will conduct its own study of mifepristone to determine whether to roll back access to the medication—under the guise of “protecting the health and safety of pregnant women.”
In a letter to Republican attorneys general, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary write that they’re being driven to act by “recent studies raising concerns about the safety of mifepristone”—citing a junk science report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). The pair also claim the Biden administration “significantly reduced” safeguards for women, in part by allowing patients to get abortion medication using telehealth.
The short version? They’re coming after providers’ ability to mail abortion pills.
Right now, one in four abortions are provided by telehealth, and shipping medication is largely what allows women living under state bans to obtain care. Thanks to abortion pills—and the shield laws that protect the providers who mail them—bans haven’t been able to put a dent in the abortion rate. In fact, the number of abortions in the U.S. has increased since Roe was overturned.
That’s why anti-abortion activists and legislators have been pressuring Kennedy and Makary to restore pre-2016 rules on mifepristone: if they can take out telehealth, they’ll finally be able to stop large swaths of women from getting the care they need. (And, they hope, stop looking like such abject failures.)
The anti-abortion movement also knows that the Trump administration has been wary of making big unpopular moves against the pills—like enforcing the Comstock Act. Rolling back access to mifepristone under the auspices of “safeguards,” however, is much more palatable. So for months, they’ve been laying the groundwork to help the FDA and HHS do just that.
Abortion, Every Day has been raising the alarm for just as long: we started warning back in April that the Trump administration was coordinating with the EPPC on the strategy and timing of their bogus research on mifepristone.
It started (publicly, at least) at the Semafor World Economy Summit on April 24th, when Makary was asked about abortion medication. The FDA commissioner insisted he had “no plans to take action” on mifepristone—unless new “data” on the drug came in:
“As a scientist, you’ve got to evolve as the data comes in. As you may know, there is an ongoing set of data that is coming into FDA on mifepristone. So if the data suggests something, or tells us that there’s a real signal, we can’t promise we’re not going to act on that data that we have not yet seen.”
Four days later, like magic, the EPPC published what they called the “largest-ever” study of mifepristone.
That same day, Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to Makary urging a full FDA review of the medication, and major anti-abortion leaders started peppering conservative media outlets with quotes, op-eds, and talking points about the report. (With the Trump administration worried about backlash, it wasn’t enough to sway the FDA and HHS—they had to convince the American public, too.)
Since then, Makary has promised Sen. Hawley to conduct a “review” of abortion medication; RFK said he’d “study the safety of mifepristone”; and a group of 22 Republican AGs demanded the FDA and HHS reinstate restrictions on abortion pills.
Now, here we are—with Makary and Kennedy responding to those AGs in a September 19th letter promising that the agencies will conduct their own study:
David Cohen, law professor and author of After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion, tells me he’s unsure if this most recent letter indicates the HHS and FDA actually plan to take serious action—or if it’s the administration’s attempt to get anti-abortion activists off their back.
“I don’t trust a single thing they write or say,” he says. After all, despite months of the anti-abortion movement begging the Trump administration to do something about abortion pills, Cohen says, “They haven’t done the two things that would be so easy for them to do—which is enforce Comstock and change the FDA rules.”
I hope that’s right. My concern, however, is that Trump’s trepidation over doing anything big and noisy about mifepristone is the exact reason the anti-abortion movement has spent the last six months carefully making it easier for the administration to claim they’re not banning abortion medication at all. They’re just making it safer for women, they’ll say, by reverting back to pre-Biden rules.
The fact that it will also decimate telehealth access, of course, will just be a happy coincidence.
I also find it telling that Makary and Kennedy say the HHS will be “conducting its own review” of the medication. It’s a move that makes sense if they’re concerned about potential backlash. After all, while the pair cites the EPPC study, they must know it won’t survive even the lightest scrutiny.
As a refresher: the EPPC claims that one in ten women who take mifepristone experience “serious adverse events.” But their research is not peer-reviewed, the organization refuses to release its dataset, and the group pretty much counts anything as “serious adverse events”—from undefined ‘mental health’ issues to simply visiting an emergency room. Not even being treated at an ER, but visiting! (Read our full debunk here.)
What’s more, the EPPC’s supposedly objective researchers are also leading the activist effort to ban the medication. In May, AED uncovered video of EPPC president Ryan Anderson strategizing with national anti-abortion groups to weaponize the fake research, and admitting that the goal was to “eliminate” abortion medication. Anderson also wrote a book titled, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing—which accuses women who have abortions of “killing” their “child.”
The cherry on top: Anderson and his co-author Jamie Bryan Hall were both long-time employees of the Heritage Foundation—the group responsible for Project 2025.
In other words, no one could mistake these guys for serious, objective researchers. And if the Trump administration wants cover, they’re much better off running their own “study”—even if it just recycles the EPPC’s secret dataset and shitty methodology. (Which the letter makes sound like a distinct possibility.)
One final thing that caught my eye: Makary and Kennedy say the administration’s study will look at “real-world outcomes and evidence.”
Now, “real-world outcomes and evidence” has a pretty specific meaning—like analyzing insurance claims, as the EPPC did. But I also noticed that in this press release from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, president Marjorie Dannenfelser praised the Trump administration for “conducting this study and taking women’s real experiences seriously.” That language feels like a tell.
It hit me that the FDA and HHS—once again coordinating with anti-abortion groups—might try to use ‘data’ from anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, or mifepristone horror stories from women coached by the anti-abortion movement. I could be reaching, and that’s certainly not the normal or reasonable understanding of “real world evidence”—but since when has this administration given a shit about normal or reasonable?
Regardless of what kind of “review” or “study” the administration conducts, it won’t change the facts: abortion medication has been proven safe and effective, again and again, for decades. We’re talking about over 100 real studies—not anti-abortion propaganda published by three incels in a trench coat.
But being on the right side of science, fact, and morality won’t necessarily help if the anti-abortion machine is able to make their junk science stick by tricking or avoiding mainstream media coverage.
When Makary made comments about not restricting mifepristone unless new data came out, for example, Bloomberg, Semafor and The Hill all ran headlines that were some variation of ‘the FDA is not going to take action on abortion medication.” A month later, the nation’s biggest political publications misread a move by the Trump administration and claimed they were “defending” mifepristone. And right now, we’re watching as the most notable media outlets ignore or misreport the fact that the Trump administration is officially calling certain kinds of birth control ‘abortifacients’.
We need critical, comprehensive coverage more than ever.
While we wait to see what happens—and Abortion, Every Day will certainly be keeping a close eye—please remember that you can order abortion medication now in all 50 states.
And no matter what this administration does, there are organizations and activists across the country who can help you get the care and support you need; that’s not going to change. Not ever.
The safety of mifepristone has been settled for over two decades, backed by dozens of peer-reviewed studies and real-world evidence from millions of patients. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the World Health Organization, and even the FDA itself have already affirmed its safety profile.
This is political theater dressed up as public health. “Protecting women” is a smokescreen for stripping them of autonomy. If HHS were serious about protecting maternal health, it would focus on the actual crises: the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, particularly among Black women, and the gaping holes in postpartum care. Instead, they’re trying to manufacture doubt around one of the safest medications ever approved.
Let’s not mince words: this is regulatory sabotage. It’s the same cynical playbook used against vaccines, PrEP, and reproductive health care for decades—weaponize “safety” language, sow fear, and give extremists cover to roll back rights.
Every hour wasted on this sham “study” is an hour stolen from tackling real public health emergencies. Every dollar spent is a dollar diverted from evidence-based care. And every headline about “reviewing” mifepristone is another opportunity for bad-faith actors to scream “dangerous” when the truth is the exact opposite.
The science is settled. The safety is proven. What’s on trial is not mifepristone—it’s whether women and pregnant people will be allowed to control their own bodies, or whether the government will keep inventing excuses to take that power away.
Oh great. My “little sisters” get
to wait until the Demented Catholic Kennedy & Health Influencer/Snake Oil Salesman Dr Oz decide if taking this miracle medication interrupts *their* “Miracle from *their* God”???
I have HAD IT!
Better stock up! Check the expiration dates!