Pro-Life Group Wants FDA Commissioner Fired for Delaying Abortion Pill Review

A leading pro-life organization called Tuesday for the immediate firing of Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, accusing him of stalling a critical safety review of the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone until after the 2026 midterm elections.

The FDA has delayed a review of safety data for mifepristone at Makary’s request, Bloomberg News reported. Makary has told agency officials to hold off on the safety review until after the midterm elections, according to the report.

Responding to the news, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a prominent anti-abortion advocacy group, decried the delay as a dangerous inaction that endangers women and unborn children while undermining state protections against abortion. The group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, issued a sharp rebuke on X.

“Enough is enough. @DrMakaryFDA should be fired immediately. FDA is doing NOTHING while every day abortion drugs take the lives of children, put women & girls at serious risk, empower abusers, & trample state pro-life laws. Reinstate in-person dispensing NOW & do a real study NOW.”

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In response to the Bloomberg report, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon defended the agency’s approach, saying, “The FDA’s comprehensive scientific reviews take the time necessary to get the science right and that’s what Dr. Makary is ensuring.”

Mifepristone is the first pill, followed by the drug misoprostol, in a regimen for medication abortion in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It won FDA approval in 2000. Since then, millions of babies have been killed in abortions and hundreds of thousands of women have been injured.

Pro-life advocates argue that the abortion pills carry serious risks, including hemorrhage, infection and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, as listed by the FDA itself. Women can end up in emergency rooms due to heavy bleeding or incomplete abortions, and in 2016, the FDA weakened reporting requirements, limiting reports to deaths only and excluding injuries, infections or hospitalizations, making it difficult to know the true number of women harmed.

A recent analysis of commercial insurance claims involving 865,727 mifepristone prescriptions from 2017 to 2023. It found 94,605 women — nearly 11% — suffered serious complications within 45 days, including hemorrhage in 3.31% of cases, emergency room visits in 4.73%, and sepsis in 0.10%.

Other issues encompassed infections, transfusions, hospitalizations and life-threatening events like cardiac problems or anaphylaxis. In nearly 3% of cases, the drug failed, requiring surgical follow-up. Multiple women have died from the abortion pill.

The delay comes despite earlier statements from U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this year that the review of mifepristone is ongoing.