A leading pro-life advocate wants Senate Republicans to put confirmation of President Trump’s FDA Commissioner on hold until the FDA stops mail-order abortions.
The Senate should refuse to confirm Dr. Heidi Overton as Food and Drug Administration commissioner until the agency restores the in-person visit requirement for the abortion pill, pro-life advocate Bob Vander Plaats said Monday.
“US Senate HELP Committee should NOT confirm Heidi Overton until in-person visit requirement is reinstated,” wrote Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader. “Since @JoeBiden administration’s removal of this requirement, nearly 2K children lose their right to life every day via abortion pill. Reinstating is common sense leadership.”
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The demand comes after Overton’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and after 50 pro-life leaders urged her to restore the abortion pill safeguards that existed before the Biden administration, at least until the FDA finishes a review they say has been underway for nearly two years.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said those who advocate for women and the unborn have “patiently awaited the end of the Biden-era abortion by mail scheme, which was designed to undermine the Dobbs decision.”
“It is time for the Trump FDA to take action,” Perkins said.
The leaders’ letter said Overton’s hearing was “an important opportunity for her to make clear what she plans to do about the FDA’s extremely permissive policy governing mifepristone.”
They gave three reasons the policy should not remain so loose.
First, safety. “A recent study found that nearly 11% of women taking mifepristone have a serious ‘adverse event’ within 45 days of taking it,” the letter said.
Second, coercion. The current rule, they wrote, increases “the risk of abuse, especially by men who seek to force women to have abortions without their consent or knowledge.” Allowing the drug to be obtained without an in-person medical visit “makes it more difficult to screen vulnerable women outside the presence of potential abusers.”
Third, state pro-life laws. The letter said the Biden administration removed the in-person dispensing requirement and allowed pharmacies to dispense mifepristone or third-party companies to sell it by mail. Abortion drugs are now mailed from states that permit killing babies in abortion into states that protect unborn life, and sent into the United States from overseas.
Despite new pro-life laws in approximately 20 states since Roe v. Wade was overturned, “abortion numbers nationwide are still increasing,” the letter said.
“Shield laws protecting abortionists are facilitating approximately 14,770 abortions in states with pro-life laws each month, meaning that around 177,240 lives could be saved annually in pro-life states if their laws were respected,” it said. “State governments attempting to protect life are being undermined by abortion drugs mailed in from outside their borders.”
The FDA is “central to this system,” the signers wrote, because it governs mifepristone, “the most common drug used to kill children in the womb and the only drug designed with abortion as its primary purpose.”
They asked whether Overton would “at least agree to revert to the policy in place before the Biden administration, a policy that provided at least some minimal safeguards and medical oversight for women until that elusive review is complete.” During her hearing last week, that didn’t happen as she largely avoided questions on the issue.
President Donald Trump nominated Overton in August. She is a physician and White House health policy adviser, board-certified in public health and general preventive medicine. She trained as a general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, earned a doctorate in clinical investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, serves as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and previously was chief policy officer at the America First Policy Institute, where she led its Center for a Healthy America.
She was a fellow in the first Trump White House from 2019 to 2020.
The biggest abortion business in America doesn’t like the pro-life doctor President Donald Trump picked to run the FDA.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund says it’s opposed Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, pro-life physician Dr. Heidi Overton, and called her “a threat to abortion” after her Senate confirmation hearing.
The abortion group’s advocacy arm falsely claimed Overton “spread misinformation, rejected science, and promoted anti-abortion propaganda” during the hearing for FDA commissioner yesterday.
“Heidi Overton is a threat to abortion. After this damning hearing, any senator who chooses to stand with the Trump administration and support her nomination is putting their stamp of approval on attacks on abortion — and putting people’s lives and health at risk,” said Sarah Guggenheimer, a Planned Parenthood Action Fund spokesperson said ironically as it ends the lives of women and babies.
The group claimed Overton committed to “seeing through the FDA’s politically motivated review of mifepristone,” “refused to acknowledge that an IUD is contraceptive care, not an ‘abortifacient,’” and “failed to shut down conspiracies about birth control in wastewater.”
Pro-life leaders have backed the nomination.
Americans United for Life CEO John Mize said, “Dr. Overton is the right candidate. She has the scientific and medical background that will enable her to perform an objective analysis of the dangers chemical abortion poses to women. Americans United for Life supports Dr. Overton as the next Commissioner of the FDA.”
Sarah Zagorski, senior director of public relations and communications at Americans United for Life, said, “We believe Dr. Overton has an opportunity to help strengthen restrictions on the chemical abortion regimen, which, in this post-Dobbs era, has raised serious concerns about the safety and well-being of women and girls. Beyond the potential physical risks, the ease with which these drugs can be obtained online may also create opportunities for abuse and violence, particularly when they can be purchased by individuals seeking to place women in dangerous or coercive situations.”
In a 2022 LifeNews article, Overton said scientific advances have strengthened the case for protecting unborn children.
“The Left goes on and on about ‘Follow the Science’ except when it comes to the abortion debate,” she said. “Medical treatments and technology have drastically changed and improved since 1973. Women can now see a baby inside their womb, watch it move and breathe, take home a picture and share it with friends on social media. The power of technology and improvements in medical care have changed the abortion debate towards pro-life arguments which is why the Left doesn’t use the ‘Follow the science’ mantra with abortion.”
She also pointed to ultrasound technology, improved survival of extremely preterm infants, and intrauterine surgery, and she criticized doctors who describe the same medical findings differently depending on whether a pregnancy is wanted.
Overton still needs Senate confirmation and the Senate HELP Committee will reportedly vote on the nomination Thursday.
