GOP Senator Fights for Life on Capitol Hill 

Sen. Josh Hawley introduced new legislation Wednesday calling on Congress to stand up against chemical abortion. 

Pro-life advocates, spiritual leaders, lawyers, and women who took abortion pills gathered to share their testimonies on Capitol Hill at a press conference introducing the legislation. 

“We are here today to issue a call to action, to call on the United States Congress to stand up and to protect the innocent unborn, to protect the health and safety of women whose lives are endangered by the chemical abortion drug known as mifepristone,” the Missouri Republican senator announced.  

Hawley said the bill, titled the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act, will withdraw the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, prohibit the drug’s manufacture or label as a pregnancy termination under the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and allow women harmed by the pill to sue manufacturers for damages. 

It will not affect the drug’s use for other treatments like for Cushing Syndrome.  

Hawley noted that the producer and distributor of mifepristone is a foreign corporation, Danco Laboratories. The pharmaceutical producer, based in the Cayman Islands, imports the medication from Spain and China, then sends it to the United States.  

“We’re also here to call on Congress to stand up to the greedy foreign corporations who are making billions of dollars in profits by endangering women’s health and shipping to them a drug that they know is dangerous, that they know will cause the most devastating health effects, and they do it anyway, because profit for them comes before people,” Hawley said. “It’s time for Congress to take action.”  

Speakers at the event highlighted the danger of the drug.

“A major study of 875,000 mifepristone prescriptions drawn from insurance claim data was published showing that in fully 11% of cases, women who take the drug mifepristone for use in an abortion experience a serious adverse health event,” said Hawley.

Hawley acknowledged that the legislation will be difficult to pass through the Senate. “My view is, I’m going to work with my colleagues. My hope is to get 60 votes. I know it will take persuading people, moving hearts and minds, but that’s what we’re here to do. That’s the mission that we are embarking upon.”  

Hawley’s bill has a House companion, sponsored by Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn.  

“As a pharmacist, I believe every drug approved in the United States must meet the highest standards of safety, transparency, and medical oversight,” Harshbarger said.  

“The FDA under previous administrations has steadily dismantled critical safety safeguards surrounding the abortion drug mifepristone—removing in-person dispensing requirements, allowing the drug to be shipped through the mail, and limiting adverse-event reporting so that most serious complications are no longer tracked,” she continued.

“Evidence now suggests that the real-world risks to women are far greater than the federal government has acknowledged.” 

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