Pro-Life Americans Hope New FDA Leaders Will Finally Stop Mail-Order Abortions

Leadership changes continue at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with more high-level departures after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s exit. The effect of these changes remains to be seen, but pro-life advocates hope the personnel shake-up will also shake loose the stalled review of a Biden-era policy that removed critical safeguards around the use of mifepristone, the chemical abortion drug.

At least three high-ranking FDA officials have departed since Makary’s sudden resignation last Tuesday. Acting Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Tracy Beth Høeg refused to sign a letter of resignation and was subsequently fired. Høeg was the fifth acting director of CDER during the second Trump administration (acting officials can serve no longer than 210 days in positions requiring Senate confirmation) and was influential in altering the FDA’s recommended immunization schedule, a policy change now blocked in federal court.

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Katherine Szarama, acting director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), was also pushed out of her role, although she will remain at the FDA in a different capacity. Szarama had served as acting CBER chief for only 10 days, following the departure of Vinay Prasad, who left at the end of April, days before Makary.

Additionally, FDA chief of staff Jim Traficant was also removed from the position he had held since March 2025, although the former health executive will stay on with the FDA in an advisory role.

Mike Davis, Høeg’s former deputy, replaced Høeg as acting director of CDER. FDA advisor Karim Mikhail took over for Szarama as acting director of CBER. And FDA Deputy Commissioner and Special Counsel Lowell Zeta succeeded Traficant as acting chief of staff.

All three top personnel changes came within just a few days of Makary’s sudden departure and his replacement by FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Kyle Diamantis as acting commissioner.

One pharmaceutical industry publication suggested the reason for the FDA leadership shake-up is that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was working to “remove controversial appointees across the HHS and replace them with more traditional options,” to avoid alienating voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

However, most Americans have never even heard of the CDER and CBER, subagencies with the FDA, nor of the people who run them, making this theory an implausible reach. Furthermore, neither FDA officials nor President Trump will be on the ballot in the fall, making a midterm connection an even greater logical leap.

A much likelier explanation is that Acting Director Diamantis plans to run the agency differently than Makary and may even have orders from his superiors to do so. That different plan may entail different leadership, especially among positions that were filled by non-Senate-confirmed “acting” positions anyway.

The FDA-related issue weighing most heavily on the Trump administration in terms of political capital is the status of a Biden-era policy removing safeguards from the abortion pill, mifepristone. The FDA initially approved the chemical abortion pill during the Clinton administration, with strict guidelines surrounding its use. These guidelines were relaxed under the Obama administration, but they still included an in-person consultation with a physician, a necessary step to verify gestational age and rule out an ectopic pregnancy. If the baby is developed beyond a certain point, or if the pregnancy is ectopic, use of the abortion pill can jeopardize the mother’s life — in addition to taking the life of her child.

After the Dobbs decision re-empowered elected officials to regulate abortion in 2022, the Biden administration demolished the remaining safeguards on mifepristone use.

Early in his tenure, Commissioner Makary promised a full review of the Biden-era policy. However, more than a year later, there are no evident signs that the FDA has made any progress — a fact strangely at odds with the Trump administration’s quick movement on any policy it chooses to prioritize.

Pro-life advocates gradually came to fear that the FDA under Makary was deliberately dragging its feet, and pro-life senators who met with the FDA reached the same conclusion. This makes the Trump administration’s abortion policy effectively indistinguishable from the Biden administration’s abortion policy, and it nullifies pro-life laws in dozens of states when abortion pills are mailed across state lines. (Like the Biden administration, the Trump administration has also declined to enforce the Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of anything intended for use in an abortion.)

Pro-life activists hope that new leadership at the FDA will take the concerns about the abortion pill more seriously.

“We look forward to seeing positive changes at the FDA under its new leadership, most importantly, decisive action to defend women and unborn children from dangerous abortion drugs,” Joy Stockbauer, policy analyst for the Center for Human Dignity at FRC, told TWS. “The Trump administration has the opportunity to do so much more than reinstate the Democratic administrations’ bare minimum protections on these drugs. This administration can make real, historic changes that actually disrupt the cycle of abortion drug violence, and we will celebrate when they take steps to make that happen.”

LifeNews Note: Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand, contributing both news and commentary from a biblical worldview. Originally published by The Washington Stand.