Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) took to the podium Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary hearing room to deliver a clear message: the abortion pill mifepristone isn’t just risky — it’s “inherently dangerous.” And it’s up to Congress to regulate it.
At a press conference, the Missouri senator unveiled his new legislation, the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act. This bill seeks to strip mifepristone — the drug responsible for the majority of U.S. abortions — of its longstanding approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to recent data from the Guttmacher Institute, chemical abortions made up 63% of all abortions in 2023, with the trend only accelerating in the years since.
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Hawley didn’t hold back, blasting the FDA for letting mail-order shipments flood the country, wiping out state-level protections for the unborn and leaving women to face severe complications like heavy bleeding, sepsis, and worse — commonly without any real medical oversight. “It is time for Congress to do something about this racket,” he declared. “And it is a racket. It is time for Congress to ban the use of mifepristone for abortion, and it is time for Congress to give the victims — the survivors — … the right to recover.”
As Hawley emphasized further, “Only Congress can address this situation. Only Congress is placed to regulate the flow of interstate drugs. Only Congress can withdraw the FDA’s approval rendered way back in the Clinton administration for this drug that has proved to be inherently dangerous and inherently prone to abuse. Only Congress can act. Congress should act. And we are here today to call on them to act.”
Adding a deeply personal and heartbreaking dimension to the event, survivor Elizabeth Gillette shared her traumatic experience with the abortion pill. She described how it devastated her body and mind, ended her unborn child’s life, and left her utterly unprepared for the horror that unfolded — without any warnings from those who provided the drug.
“[My] abortion was so different from the double period and the extra clotting that they told me that I would experience. And in that moment, I had to decide if I was going to throw my child in the trash or flush my child down the toilet. And I chose to flush him into a septic tank. See, they didn’t tell me that there [were] any complications regarding this pill. They did not tell me that there was a black box warning. They did not tell me that people had sepsis or anything else. There was no follow-up care. And instead of relief, I got horrible nightmares that started where I would see people dying, and people being murdered. I would hear infants crying in the trash cans when I walked by them. I would hear infants crying in the toilet. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which I still suffer to this day. This is not safe. This is not easy. This is not something that our women need to be experiencing.”
Surrounded by pro-life allies and the women who have been traumatized by chemical abortion, Hawley framed the fight as a double victory: shielding vulnerable women from what many see as a profit-driven chemical experiment and protecting unborn life when the courts and agencies won’t.
Even though the Trump administration has a proven pro-life record, countless pro-lifers have expressed frustration over the president’s controversial policies on chemical abortion. These include the FDA’s approval of new generic abortion drugs and its failure to fully restore safeguards on established ones like mifepristone and misoprostol.
On Wednesday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins hosted Hawley to dive deeper into these issues. “As the Trump administration continues to keep in place a Biden-era policy that allows dangerous abortion drugs to be illegally trafficked across state lines,” Perkins noted, “states are actually suing the FDA over this policy.” Now, with Hawley’s legislation gaining traction, “lawmakers on Capitol Hill are now stepping up.”
Hawley stressed the urgency of the situation, emphasizing that companies are profiting enormously while “ruining women’s lives. … [I]t’s time to bar this drug from use in abortion.” Perkins highlighted the overwhelming risks, saying the FDA has “continued to keep in place this Biden-era policy” despite clear dangers. Hawley agreed, explaining that “the truth is that the FDA, over the last 20 years, has systematically rolled back any kind of safety restrictions on mifepristone. It’s essentially unregulated now. … This is a very dangerous drug. And the bottom line is: only Congress can act and give us some clarity on this. If Congress says, ‘We’re going to take mifepristone off the market for abortion,’ that’s how it’s going to be. No future liberal administration will be able to roll that back. It will be in the law. And that’s what we need to do to protect women’s health.”
Regarding his bill, Hawley expressed optimism. “I’m delighted that we’ve got movement on both sides of … Congress,” he said. “I think that this has got to be a top priority for anybody in Congress who calls himself or herself pro-life.” Especially in a post-Dobbs landscape — where the abortion pill can be easily shipped into states with protective laws — “we have got to take this inherently dangerous drug off the market.”
“[T]his is a measure that the Family Research Council wholeheartedly supports,” Perkins affirmed, “because it does address this issue of the adverse health effects of women. It also … addresses the issue of the undermining of state pro-life laws.” Yet the stakes remain high. Abortions have reached record levels, driven largely by the drugs. There are “more abortions now than ever before,” Hawley emphasized. “And what’s driving that increase is the chemical abortion drug. It’s turning mailboxes into Planned Parenthood. … You do not need a doctor’s approval. … This drug is incredibly easy to abuse. It’s inherently dangerous. It should be off the market for abortion.”
And, Perkins concluded, “the FDA is aiding and abetting.” Congress must intervene to protect women, uphold state laws, and confront what many see as a dangerous and unregulated threat.
LifeNews Note: Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.
