The FDA has failed to protect women from the dangers of chemical abortions. Thankfully, it is finally being held accountable.
On behalf of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and doctors Shaun Jester, Regina Frost-Clark, Tyler Johnson, and George Delgado, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit suing federal government officials for illegally approving abortion drugs that harm women.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has prioritized politics over women’s health and safety by approving the chemical abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. The FDA was able to approve these drugs by mischaracterizing pregnancy as an “illness,” rather than the natural process that it is. The administration also erroneously argued that these drugs provide a “meaningful therapeutic benefit.”
As the lawsuit explains, the FDA has failed to adhere to its legal obligations to protect the health, safety, and welfare of women. It has ignored the dangerous side effects of the hormone-blocking drugs, disregarded the myriad of evidence that chemical abortions cause more serious health complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant women seeking chemical abortions.
Further, in 2016, the FDA extended the timeframe in which a woman may take abortion drugs from seven weeks’ gestation to 10 weeks’ gestation. This increases the chances for adverse health complications for the mother. The FDA also reduced the number of in-person doctor visits required to obtain the drugs, allowed professionals who are not medical doctors to prescribe the drugs, and removed the requirement for abortionists to report health complications from chemical abortions.
“Pregnancy is not an illness, and chemical abortion drugs don’t provide a therapeutic benefit—they end a baby’s life and they pose serious and life-threatening complications to the mother,” said ADF Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake. “The FDA never had the authority to approve these dangerous drugs for sale. We urge the court to listen to the doctors we represent who are seeking to protect girls and women from the documented dangers of chemical abortion drugs.”
Blake is absolutely right. Healthcare should never cause harm. In the case of chemical abortions, this so-called “healthcare” ends one life and traumatizes another.
Currently in the U.S., more than half of all abortions are performed via abortion drugs, and women are suffering because of it. Major research consistently shows that women who undergo chemical abortions experience serious complications. The pills put women at risk for infection, injury, loss of fertility, depression and even death.
The FDA has been incredibly reckless, and it’s time for it to finally be held accountable. Please pray for the success of this lawsuit and for the health and safety of women and their children in crisis pregnancy situations.
