It was almost exactly a year ago when then-candidate Donald Trump raised a few eyebrows by confirming — out loud and on camera — that he was “looking at” possible restrictions on contraception. The Republican eventually walked that back, though they were not his only election-season comments on the issue.
In fact, in early August 2024, Trump said at a press conference that he wouldn’t rule out revoking access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortions, saying that as far as he was concerned, there were “absolutely” ways to effectively ban the pill in a “humane” way.
It was against this backdrop that HuffPost reported this week:
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s quest to legitimize a junk science report undermining the safety of a widely used abortion pill was fully realized this week. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Makary confirmed in a Monday letter to the Missouri senator that the agency will conduct a safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone. Makary’s letter is in response to an April request from Hawley for the department to review mifepristone following a new report published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an anti-abortion conservative think tank and advisory board member of Project 2025.
For those unfamiliar with the medication, the FDA approved mifepristone about a quarter of a century ago, to be used as part of a two-step process to terminate unwanted pregnancies up to 10 weeks. The drug has proven to be safe, effective and commonly used.
It’s nevertheless become a popular target for opponents of reproductive rights, including a notorious Trump-appointed judge in Texas who curtailed access to the drug (though he was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court).
Hawley, in particular, has demanded that the administration explore new ways to crack down on the safe and effective medication, and those efforts appear to have resonated with the Trump-appointed FDA chief. The move comes a few weeks after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also endorsed a safety review of mifepristone, pointing to the “alarming” report on the medication’s safety from the Ethics and Public Policy Center. What the conspiracy theorist failed to mention is that the “alarming” report is based on evidence that NBC News described as “flawed” and “shoddy science.” The NBC News report added that the evidence Kennedy referenced “was neither peer-reviewed nor published in a medical journal.” As for what the FDA’s unnecessary re-review will conclude, watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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