Cortez Masto, Senate Democrats Demand Answers from Trump Admin on New “Review” of Mifepristone, Raise Alarm Over Looming Efforts to Restrict Medication Abortion

Decades of Evidence Have Proven Mifepristone is Safe and Effective

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and the entire Senate Democratic caucus sent a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Martin Makary expressing alarm over the Trump administration's plans to conduct "its own review of the evidence" on the safety and effectiveness of mifepristone.

Approved by the FDA in 2000, mifepristone is a proven safe and effective medication used in the majority of abortions in the United States. According to data from Guttmacher, medication abortion accounted for nearly two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. in 2023, the first year after the Dobbs decision that overturned the Constitutional right to abortion.

"Decades of evidence and hundreds of studies prove the safety and efficacy of mifepristone, which is not only the most common method of abortion in the U.S., but is also frequently prescribed to women to help manage early pregnancy loss or miscarriage. We are alarmed by the Department's obvious attempts to politicize the review, regulation, and approval of mifepristone at the FDA, and we write to request more information," wrote the Senators.

The letter lays into a recent "report" put out by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), an anti-abortion think tank, that appears to be the basis for the Trump administration's announced review of mifepristone. The EPPC report parrots anti-abortion disinformation, was not peer-reviewed or published in any medical journal, and has been widely criticized by reputable health organizations since its release.

"By elevating the sham EPPC report as rationale for restricting access to mifepristone, HHS is blatantly undermining well-established science and weaponizing disinformation to fit the Trump administration's clear agenda to cut off abortion access in any way possible. FDA relying on a partisan, sham report as part of the evidence review for any drug is deeply concerning-and in this case, it's clear that the Trump administration is downright eager to do away with established science if it helps further their extreme anti-abortion agenda," continued the Senators.

Mifepristone is already subject to burdensome Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) requirements that must be followed for prescribing and dispensing mifepristone. In fact, FDA already restricts mifepristone more heavily than 99.5% of the over 20,000 prescription drugs it regulates. On October 30, a federal court ruled that the FDA's explanation for its current restrictions on mifepristone is unreasoned, unsupported, and illogical.

In their letter, the Senators ask how the administration plans to comply with this ruling and ensure any review of mifepristone is consistent with the court order, "That court order reinforces that, in conducting this new review, FDA may not cherry-pick junk science serving an anti-abortion agenda, but must instead look at the full body of evidence both confirming mifepristone's safety and underscoring the harms of the FDA's onerous restrictions."

"Mifepristone has long been shown to be safe and effective, and there is no new evidence to justify burdensome restrictions that block women from getting the health care they need," the Senators concluded.

Read the full letter here.

Senator Cortez Masto has been a fierce advocate for women's reproductive rights. In response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Cortez Masto introduced the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act to ensure legal protections for women traveling across state lines to receive reproductive care. She's championed legislation to repeal the Comstock Act, an arcane 1873 law that anti-choice extremists have repeatedly invoked as a backdoor means to effectively ban abortion nationwide without a single act of Congress. In the last Congress, the Senator also cosponsored legislation to codify the right to contraception and IVF.

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