Josh Hawley Proposes Law To Ban Mailing Abortion Pills | EUROtoday

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) launched a regulation on Tuesday to limit the abortion capsule mifepristone, citing an anti-abortion junk science report that has been making the rounds in conservative media.

The “Restoring Safeguard for Dangerous Abortion Drugs Act” goals to limit mifepristone by reinstating 2011 Food and Drug Administration guidelines across the treatment. Those guidelines, loosened by the Biden and Obama administrations, would restrict who can prescribe mifepristone and require in-person visits for abortion capsules — successfully banning telemedicine for abortion, which now accounts for 20% of all abortions within the U.S. It would additionally mandate in-person follow-up visits and additional restrict how far into being pregnant mifepristone could be prescribed.

The invoice additionally seeks to permit ladies to sue telemedicine suppliers who mail abortion capsules and ban international corporations from importing the treatment into the nation. This might have been meant to focus on worldwide teams like Aid Access, which used to mail abortion capsules from abroad however now makes use of home suppliers to prescribe and ship. The group has been important to abortion entry since Roe fell.

“I’m introducing the Restoring Safeguards for Dangerous Abortion Drugs Act after a bombshell study revealed the truth about mifepristone: it’s dangerous,” Hawley mentioned in a press launch. “The data shows 1 in 10 women who take mifepristone experience adverse health effects, like going to the ER or suffering from sepsis. The FDA needs to act to protect women now.”

It’s unlikely the invoice will move, given Hawley wants seven Democrats to vote in favor.

The examine Hawley is referring to is a report revealed final month by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative suppose tank and advisory board member of Project 2025. The report claims it’s the “largest-known study of the abortion pill” and that just about 11% of girls “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion.”

But knowledge scientists voiced critical considerations concerning the validity of the report, mentioning that it’s not peer-reviewed and the report’s suggestions don’t line up with the information they allegedly analyzed.

“Even apart from all the red flags with the data and supposed analysis, the fact where they land in the recommendations — that has nothing to do with the research itself — indicates this was driven more by ideology than by scientific rigor,” Rachel Jones, a principal analysis scientist on the Guttmacher Institute, advised HuffPost final month.

Bernadette Breslin, press secretary for Hawley, referred HuffPost to Hawley’s public statements on mifepristone however didn’t reply when requested the senator’s ideas on the validity of the EPPC report.

A spokesperson for EPPC advised HuffPost final month that the report was not peer-reviewed as a result of “the extensive pro-abortion bias in the peer-review process” creates “no opportunities to publish peer-reviewed analysis that offer major substantive critiques of the abortion pill or abortion.”

Hawley’s invoice comes per week after he despatched a letter to FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, urging the company to limit mifepristone in gentle of the EPPC report. The senator from Missouri additionally revealed an op-ed on The Federalist, a conservative media outlet, amplifying the report’s findings and once more calling for Makary to take motion.