![abortion pill mifepristone tablets on a pink background](https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pexels-anna-shvets-3683047-1200x675.jpg)
The U.S. Food And Drug Administration endorsed President Joe Biden’s abortion-for-all agenda this week when it expanded permissions for the sale of abortion pills to include retail pharmacies and drugstores.
Prior to the FDA’s recent interference, mifepristone could only be obtained via clinic, doctor, or mail order, which the Biden administration made permanent under the guise of the Covid pandemic.
Already, pill-induced abortions account for more than half of them in the United States. Now that the FDA quietly scaled back its regulation of the abortion pill even further to match the Biden administration’s post-Roe activism, that number is only expected to rise as chains such as CVS and Walgreens agree to legally dispense the fatal drug in any state where chemical abortions are legal.
“We are working through the registration, necessary training of our pharmacists, as well as evaluating our pharmacy network in terms of where we normally dispense products that have extra FDA requirements and will dispense these consistent with federal and state laws,” Walgreens said in a statement after the FDA announcement.
The FDA claims the pills are only approved to end an unborn baby’s life through 10 weeks of gestation. There is, however, no way for the regulatory agency to enforce that rule for women who self-administer the pill without physician oversight and ultrasounds, especially now that patients can obtain prescriptions through telehealth appointments. Now all that’s required to obtain the fatal chemical abortion pills is a video call and a CVS. If activists get their way, abortion pills could soon be available over the counter and obtainable via self-prescription.
“Supplying medication abortion with less medical oversight is a dangerous and life-threatening risk due to the inability to accurately confirm gestational age and rule out possible complications without an ultrasound,” Donna Harrison, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement.
Pills like mifepristone are responsible for a more than 500 percent increase in abortion-related emergency room visits. And the data shows that, in at least 17 states with taxpayer-funded abortion, many of which have relaxed chemical abortion laws, there is a 22 percent greater risk of general hospital visits within a month of taking an abortion pill. Compared to surgical abortion, pill-induced abortions are 53 percent more likely to cause abortion-related hospital visits. That risk, studies indicate, increases year after year.
“Significant morbidity and mortality have occurred following the use of mifepristone as an abortifacient,” a different study, conducted in 2021, concluded. “A pre-abortion ultrasound should be required to rule out ectopic pregnancy and confirm gestational age. The FDA AER system is inadequate and significantly underestimates the adverse events from mifepristone.”
The proliferation of the abortion pill, popularized due to the intentional laxness of safety standards and extreme abortion activism of the Obama and Biden administrations, is ripe with not just ethical issues, but legal ones.
Already, organizations such as Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, are suing the FDA for improperly approving abortion pills for sale and failing to vet the safety of mifepristone.
“The FDA failed America’s women and girls when it chose politics over science and approved chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States. And it has continued to fail them by repeatedly removing even the most basic precautionary requirements associated with their use,” the lawsuit states.