Conservatives Think This Study Will Kill Abortion Pills

4.28.25

Click to skip ahead: In Attacks on Abortion Pills, what the head of the FDA really said about abortion medication. Weird Science digs into the bullshit study conservatives say shows mifepristone is unsafe. Indoctrination Nation has the latest on ‘Baby Olivia’ bills in Indiana. In the Nation, some quick hits. In the States, news from Texas, Florida, and Colorado.

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Attacks on Abortion Pills

“FDA Leader Says He Has No Plan to Act on Abortion Pill Access” - Bloomberg

“FDA commissioner says ‘no plans’ to pull abortion pill mifepristone” - Semafor

“FDA chief says no current plans to restrict mifepristone access” - The Hill

If you read these headlines last week, you’d probably be under the impression that Trump’s new FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, promised that abortion medication was safe. But as is so often the case when it comes to reproductive rights, mainstream outlets missed the real story: Rather than promising not to attack access to abortion pills, Makary actually shared how Republicans plan to restrict the medication.

Makary did say at the Semafor World Economy Summit last week that he had “no plans to take action” on abortion pills—but his comments didn’t end there:

“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.”

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: Makary is laying the groundwork for a coming argument that the pills are unsafe. (They’re not.)

By pushing out a careful talking point about having “no plans to take action” on the medication, the FDA chief avoided political fallout and snagged positive headlines. But what Makary really said is that the agency will restrict the pills if new data “suggests something.”

But suggests what? And where is this data coming from? Anti-abortion organizations have been pushing out fake (and retracted) studies on the supposed danger of abortion medication—research that made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

And wouldn’t you know it: Just today, a powerful conservative organization has released a new study purporting to show that abortion medication is dangerous. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

I’ll dig into this ‘research’ in the next section of the newsletter, but I have to point out that this is why you’re not supposed to just repeat Republican talking points as fact and throw them in a headline. It’s absurd.

By the way, the woman who interviewed Makary did her job well: When he mentioned new data about the pills, she asked if he’d give more weight to newer data showing that the pills aren’t safe—which would contradict decades of credible research. He dodged the question.

For more on the FDA chief—who has a history of making false statements about abortion—read about what he said about abortion at his confirmation hearing last month.

Weird Science

Okay, let’s get into what conservatives are calling the “largest-ever” study on abortion medication—research they claim shows that over 10% of women “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event.”

Sounds terrifying, right? Until you actually look at what the so-called researchers at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) are calling a “serious adverse event.”

Here’s what they did: The group bought access to a health insurance claims database and flagged certain diagnosis and procedure codes—then simply labeled whatever they wanted as abortion complications. For example, out of the 94,605 patients they say were seriously harmed by abortion pills, 40,960 simply visited an emergency room. Not treated at the emergency room, but visited.

Tellingly, while the EPPC claims they "followed the official FDA definition of a 'serious adverse event,’” the FDA does not define an ER visit alone as one. So right off the bat, they’re full of shit.

This isn’t new. Anti-abortion activists have long inflated “complication” rates by using ER visits. But again, there’s a big difference between going to the ER and being treated at the ER. Sometimes patients who take abortion medication are surprised by the amount of bleeding—normal bleeding—and go to the emergency room out of caution. That doesn’t mean they had any complication, let alone a “serious” one.

The EPPC also claims that 49,169 patients experienced "other, abortion-specific complications." What are those? They don’t say! They vaguely reference “codes related to abortion or miscarriage” and “life-threatening mental health diagnoses.”

In other words, they won't tell us what the supposed complication was for more than half of the patients they claim were seriously harmed—and without knowing what mental health conditions they’re counting as “life-threatening,” it means they can define that at will.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you go see your doctor for anxiety or insomnia a month after having an abortion. Because EPPC is counting any event that happens within 45 days of taking mifepristone—and they’re not defining “life-threatening”—your sleep problem or anxiety could be counted as a “serious adverse event” of abortion pills.

Even if a patient was treated for something like suicidal ideation, EPPC is connecting it to abortion without proof. (Let’s not even get into how ironic this is, considering mental health conditions are excluded as a life-threatening condition in abortion bans.)

After ER visits and “other” complications, the next most common issue they list is hemorrhage—but even that data is suspect because the EPPC doesn’t define what it means! Doctors I spoke with say bleeding is expected during medication abortion, and it’s only considered a serious complication if a blood transfusion is needed. But something tells me that’s not the standard EPPC is using.

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And read Abortion, Every Day about the anti-abortion movement’s war on science and data:

Texas is Fabricating Abortion Data

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Doctor Daniel Grossman, obstetrics and gynecology professor and director of ANSIRH at the University of California at San Francisco, tells me that there are even more methodological flaws: The study isn’t peer-reviewed; it only includes patients with insurance-covered abortions—which isn’t the norm; it includes people who may have taken mifepristone without misoprostol, which means it wouldn't reflect the standard FDA-approved regimen; and the study included patients who received mifepristone for miscarriage management.

Dr. Grossman also points out that the study counts needing a procedural abortion as a serious adverse event. “This is not an SAE,” he says. “This is a known potential outcome of the treatment, and patients are told that medication abortion is about 95%-97% effective before they choose this abortion method.”

Still, EPPC president Ryan T. Anderson calls the study “the statistical equivalent of a category 5 hurricane hitting the prevailing narrative of the abortion industry.” (I'd say it's closer to a fart. And not even a memorable one.)

Regardless, you can be sure we’ll see this research everywhere over the next few weeks. I won’t link to the sites, but it’s already all over right-wing media. It’s also likely that the Trump administration will trot this out at some point as a reason to restrict mifepristone.

That means we should be screaming from the rooftops about how fake this research is. If you’re a reporter reading the newsletter—please, don’t let this junk science go unchecked. It’s a scandal and a really big story, especially because of what the FDA chief just said last week.

For the rest of us: Share it on social media, start writing to your legislators now before the study gets weaponized, and tell your friends about it—anything. And I’ll help! I’m going to publish a few graphics on Abortion, Every Day’s social accounts, if you need something to share.

To read real data and research on abortion medication and other reproductive health issues, check out the Guttmacher Institute and ANSIRH.

Indoctrination Nation

Okay, time to talk about ‘Baby Olivia’ videos. Again. As you all know, bills are being proposed and passed across the country that mandate public schools show students an anti-abortion propaganda video disguised as a lesson on fetal development.

Here’s the thing: Republicans are getting savvier about how they push this mandate. Instead of explicitly naming the video—which was produced by the extremist group Live Action—lawmakers are now copying and pasting language from ‘Baby Olivia’ bills without ever mentioning the video by name. It’s a way to feign objectivity, pretending they’re not requiring Live Action’s video, while still defining the criteria so narrowly that only the ‘Baby Olivia’ lesson fits.

Iowa Republicans pulled that move earlier this month, and now Indiana lawmakers are up to the same thing in a sex education bill. Democrats there noticed the tactic right away, and questioned their GOP colleagues about the specificity of the language. “There has to be some reason why you kept it in there,” Sen. Shelli Yoder said.

You’re going to love this: The lawmaker responsible for the ‘Baby Olivia’ language? Sen. Gary Byrne, who just came under fire for trying to remove a requirement that students be taught about consent in sex ed classes. Byrne insists that plenty of videos would qualify under his bill—not just the one created by an extremist anti-abortion group.

Sure, because there are so many three minute, high-definition, computer-generated rendering or animations about every stage of fetal development. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Sex education organizations should produce a video right now that fits all of those requirements and push them out in the states where the ‘Baby Olivia’ bill isn’t mentioned by name.

As a reminder, this legislation has been passed in North Dakota, Idaho, Tennessee, and Kansas (where Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed it, but Republicans are expected to override). ‘Baby Olivia’ bills are being considered in New Hampshire, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia. If I missed one, let me know!

In the Nation

• Wyoming Public Media has an interview with Diana Greene Foster, author of the Turnaway Study;

• Forbes looks at the abortion ban brain-drain;

• Ms. magazine has an interview with Carole Joffe and David S. Cohen about their new book, “After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion”;

• And POLITICO has an interview with Mary Ziegler on her new book.

All Eyes on Extremism

If you missed my TikTok about Texas Rep. Brent Money, be prepared to get very pissed off. This is the legislator who went on a Twitter tirade last week after his ‘equal protection’ bill didn’t get the hearing he was promised: HB 2197—which would punish abortion patients as murderers—was set to be considered in a committee before it was unceremoniously dropped from the schedule.

While I was reading through Money’s whining tweets, I noticed that he had given a speech recently about the legislation and why Republicans should support jailing abortion patients on homicide charges. If you can stomach watching, man oh man does this epitomize how little conservatives think of women. Essentially, Money compares punishing women as murderers to spanking children. Yes, really. He says that when you spank a child, it’s not that you want to hit them—it’s just the best way to teach them right from wrong. Paternalism on speed:

In the States

Well, this should come as no surprise: The Tampa Bay Times reports that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave millions of dollars last year to a network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, asking them to run ads against Amendment 4. Hilariously, the Florida Pregnancy Care Network decided not to run the ads—so DeSantis didn’t really get his money’s worth.

Always the charmer, the Republican governor appears to be getting a bit of revenge: he wants to repeal a state statute that guarantees the group’s contract with the state. Obviously, I don’t feel bad for any of them.

As you probably know by now, Amendment 4 failed to pass even though it won 58% of the vote. Florida has a 60% threshold to change the state constitution, and DeSantis led a full-scale assault against the measure: he used millions in taxpayer dollars, weaponized state agencies, and even launched a bogus voter fraud investigation—directing the cops show up at the homes of voters who signed a petition in support of Amendment 4.

To learn more about what happened with Florida’s abortion rights ballot measure, check out my conversation with Amendment 4 campaign director Lauren Brenzel here.

Meanwhile, I’m glad that folks in Texas are talking about the legislation that would test the state’s wastewater for evidence of abortion medication, birth control, and other hormones.

Abortion, Every Day broke this news a few weeks ago—it’s part of a broader campaign to restrict the medications by claiming that they’re harming the environment.

Today, news of the bill is in the editorial section of the Austin American-Statesman, calling it “insidious and alarming.”

“And if this sounds like a far-fetched use of environmental law to further restrict personal reproductive healthcare decisions, recognize that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was never the finish line, and those who wish to take child-bearing decisions out of your hands will be unrelentingly resourceful in their use of tools.”

I know I’m like a broken record at this point, but it’s bills like this that are exactly why it’s so important that we’re paying attention to every little thing Republicans are doing.

You may have already heard the sad news that the Boulder Abortion Clinic is closing. Founded and led by Dr. Warren Hern, the Colorado clinic is one of the few in the country that provides later abortion care—and has been the target of conservative attacks, threats and harassment for years. From Dr. Hern:

“All of us who do this work have had increasing difficulty in being able to offer the services. We can't continue, and it breaks my heart. But this is the way it is.”

He pointed to the abortion fund crisis, specifically, telling Colorado Public Radio that the money from funds are “sort of drying up.”

Hern also says that in addition to not being able to afford care, many of his patients—who come from out-of-state—are afraid of the threat of criminalization.

“Republicans are even threatening to prosecute people for crossing state lines or even traveling to get an abortion,” he says.

It’s a sad day for abortion access—especially later abortion patients, who already have so few options.

To learn more about abortion later in pregnancy, go to Who Not When.

Quick hits:

• Slate on how Missouri Republicans;

• Virginia saw a 16% rise in abortion last year, driven by out-of-state patients;

• A Republican running for Minnesota Senate is under fire for past comments against birth control.

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It’s not enough for us to call out brazen anti-abortion attacks. We need offensives of our own. Read my Friday column for more:

It's a Long Fight—Let's Go Big on Abortion