Hawley Pushes Bill to Ban ‘Inherently Dangerous’ Abortion Pill Nationwide

Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation on Wednesday that would effectively ban the abortion pill, mifepristone, in the United States. 

“The science is clear: the chemical abortion drug is inherently dangerous to women and prone to abuse,” Hawley stated at a press conference. The Missouri Republican’s proposal, titled the “Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act,” would revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, prohibit its distribution for abortion under federal drug law, and allow women harmed by chemical abortions to pursue legal action against drug manufacturers.

A previous proposal by Hawley in May 2025, “Restoring Safeguards for Dangerous Abortion Drugs Act,” sought to reinstate stricter FDA safety rules for mifepristone before it stalled in the Senate.

GOP Rep. Diana Harshbarger, who supported the introduction of the bill, added, “[T]he FDA under previous administrations has steadily dismantled critical safety safeguards surrounding the abortion drug mifepristone.” Harshbarger is expected to introduce companion legislation in the House.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the Biden administration loosened FDA safety requirements governing the abortion pill, suspending enforcement of the in-person dispensing rule. As a result, mifepristone is now prescribed via telehealth and shipped directly to patients. The FDA eliminated the requirement for in-person dispensing entirely in 2023. The Trump administration has kept those rules in place, despite strong lobbying from pro-life activists to overturn them.

Guttmacher Institute data from 2023 showed that medication abortions “account[ed] for 63% of all abortions in the formal health care system. This is an increase from 2020, when medication abortions accounted for 53% of all abortions.” Researchers noted that medication abortion figures “do not include self-managed medication abortions that take place outside of the formal health care system or abortion medication mailed to people in states with total abortion bans.”

Findings from a JAMA study in 2022 suggest that “self-managed” medication abortions are also on the rise following Dobbs. Requests for the pill through telemedicine provider Aid Access nearly tripled in 30 states; mean daily requests started at roughly 82.6 in the year before the leak, increased to 137.1 following the leak of the Dobbs decision, and increased again to 213.7 after Dobbs was announced.

A 2025 study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center analyzed insurance claims from more than 865,000 mifepristone abortions. It found that approximately 11 percent of women experienced a “serious or life-threatening adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion,” which included complications like “sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging.” This rate was 22 times higher than the complication rate cited on the FDA drug label.

Mifepristone is classified as a drug that has “serious safety concerns” under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy. Notably, the pill comes with an “FDA boxed warning,” which is the highest level of FDA safety warning.

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