WASHINGTON (OSV News) ─ The head of the U.S. bishops' pro-life committee has written a letter to Trump administration officials expressing concern about the status of their promised safety review of mifepristone, sometimes called the abortion pill.
The letter comes amid a growing frustration among pro-life advocates over the Trump administration's approach to policy regarding the drug.
In a May 4 letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, wrote that while the group is "grateful for the FDA's undertaking the needed study of mifepristone," he is concerned about "reports alleging a deliberate delay in the completion of that review."
"Without sacrificing scientific rigor and accuracy, we nonetheless urgently encourage the FDA to proceed as expeditiously as possible with its safety review and to, at the very least, restore the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS), if not revisit the legally dubious approval of the drug altogether," Bishop Thomas wrote.
"The former REMS' requirement for in-person doctor's office visits, in particular," he continued, "would help to determine gestational age accurately, whether a pregnancy is ectopic, and to screen for abuse and human trafficking ─ all of which are critical for the health and safety of women. Follow-up appointments would help detect other complications."
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that pro-life groups are growing concerned that the review is being deliberately slow-walked. Pro-life organizations have pushed the FDA to end a Biden administration policy permitting mifepristone to be distributed by mail.
However, the Trump administration has thus far left that regulation in place despite the opposition from pro-life groups, and has sought to block state challenges to mifepristone, such as one from Louisiana.
The status and timeline of the FDA's promised safety review of mifepristone remains unclear; however, in court filings, the Department of Justice has indicated it may come after November's midterm elections.
After the Journal's report, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a group that works to elect pro-life candidates to public office, reiterated its previous call for Makary to be fired over the FDA's approval of a new generic form of mifepristone ─ a pill commonly, but not exclusively, used for abortion in the first 10 weeks of gestation ─ and its lack of clarity about a promised safety review of that drug.
"FDA Commissioner Makary should be fired immediately," Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA president, said in a May 4 statement. "Indifference is completely unacceptable to millions of pro-life voters expecting the administration to act to save lives. Abortions are up, not down after Dobbs, with at least 1.1 million deaths a year. More than 90,000 abortions occur each year just in states that protect babies in the law throughout all nine months of pregnancy ─ a direct result of Biden's Covid-era mail-order abortion drug rule, which the Trump administration inexplicably allows to continue."
Dannenfelser further argued that "without basic in-person medical supervision, male buyers have a frighteningly easy tool to abuse women," and that failure to rescind the mail-order regulation is "a five-alarm crisis for the pro-life movement and for the GOP."
Proponents of mifepristone ─ the first of two drugs used in a chemical or medication-based abortion ─ argue it is statistically safe for a woman to take, and attempts to restrict it are an attempt to ban abortion outright. Opponents of the drug's use for abortion argue there are significant risks to those who take it, particularly outside of medical settings, in addition to ending the life of an unborn child early in its development.
In his letter, Bishop Thomas added, "We hope you will agree that vulnerable mothers in need do not deserve the isolation and danger of telemedicine chemical abortion. Instead, we must do better to meet mothers with compassionate, meaningful, and authentic support that enables them and their families to welcome their new children into the world."
In a similar letter to congressional lawmakers regarding the pro-life committee's legislative priorities, Bishop Thomas also urged efforts to roll back the policy permitting mifepristone to be distributed by mail for abortion.
The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion. However, the same drug combination has sometimes been used in recent years for miscarriage care, where an unborn child has already passed, a situation that Catholic teaching would hold as morally licit use.
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Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
