Report: Adverse events skyrocketed after Biden loosened abortion guardrails
The rate of adverse events from the abortion pill grew significantly higher after the Biden administration removed the in-person dispensing requirement for the drug.
The rate of serious adverse events was 10.15% when a requirement was in effect that women visit health clinics in person to obtain the pill. However, it jumped to 11.50% when that requirement was removed, according to the new report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center. This marks a statistically significant difference of 1.35 percentage points and an increase of 13%.
“A year ago, we reported that the data show chemical abortion is 22 times more dangerous for women than the [Food and Drug Administration] previously admitted,” Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan T. Anderson told The Daily Signal. “Now the data show that chemical abortion became significantly more dangerous after the Biden admin removed the in-person doctor requirement.”
“So not only is it dangerous, but allowing online, mail-order abortion pills made it even worse,” he continued. “That’s all the more reason for the Trump FDA to at minimum restore the in-person doctor visit.”
In April 2021, the Biden administration’s FDA stopped requiring that abortion drugs be dispensed to women in person, which allowed them to receive abortion pills through the mail with telehealth appointments. The FDA has not enforced the in-person dispensing requirement ever since.
Pro-life advocates have repeatedly called on President Donald Trump and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary to restore the in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion pill, but the administration has not acted.
“Do not play politics with women’s lives,” Anderson said. “Every day you delay the return of the in-person doctor visit requirement, is a day when more women are placed at risk. Women deserve better.”
A previous study from the Ethics and Public Policy Center found that 11% of women experience adverse health effects, such as sepsis, infection, and hemorrhaging, within 45 days of a chemical abortion.
The FDA is performing a safety review of mifepristone, but no findings have been released.
On March 6, Department of Justice lawyers asked a court to pause a Louisiana state lawsuit seeking to restore the in-person dispensing requirement on mifepristone.
The judge “should either stay this case until after FDA completes its [safety] review or dismiss it,” the lawyers wrote.
The Ethics and Public Policy Center report found that taking mifepristone without an in-person doctor’s visit is particularly dangerous for women with an ectopic pregnancy, which can only be diagnosed by a physician in person.
The data also shows that the rate of chemical abortion prescriptions during an ectopic pregnancy was 0.27% before former President Joe Biden relaxed regulations, and 0.41% after, a 52% increase.
Mifepristone has become the most common abortion method, accounting for about 63% of all abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm. However, this is likely an undercount, according to the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, because it does not include abortions outside the formal health care system or under shield laws.
Shield laws allow abortionists to mail abortion drugs to women in states that prohibit most abortions or impose gestational limits on abortions, promising them immunity from lawsuits or state penalties.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]