Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and 19 Republican Senate colleagues, plus 71 House Republicans, want the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban the use of Mifeprex, commonly known as RU-486, to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks after conception.
“As you may further know, the Clinton administration approved this lethal drug under pressure from these same groups and under a highly politicized approval process.
“We believe this deadly pill should never have been approved, yet the abortion industry was politically rewarded with an accelerated approval process normally reserved for high-risk drugs that address life-threatening illnesses like AIDS.”
The Mifeprex abortion pill has been used to terminate the lives of an estimated 3.7 million unborn babies, caused 24 maternal deaths, and resulted in more than 4,100 adverse reactions in users, including bleeding, extreme abdominal pain, and life-threatening infections, according to the signers. The drug is also known as “mifepristone.”
“Of course, adverse events are notoriously underreported, which makes the true number impossible to assess. Moreover, as of 2016, abortion pill manufacturers are only required to report maternal deaths,” the signers told Hahn.
“However, most women experiencing adverse reactions (such as hemorrhaging) are more likely to seek emergency care at hospitals and emergency rooms, rather than returning to the abortion facility where the pill was prescribed.”
The signers encouraged Hahn to exercise the FDA’s existing authority to declare Mifeprex “an imminent hazard to public health” that poses “a significant threat of danger.”
Senators joining Cruz in signing the letter include Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Joni K. Ernst (R-Iowa), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Roger F. Wicker (R-Miss.), Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), M. Michael Rounds (R-S.D.), Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), James E. Risch (R-Idaho), and John Hoeven (R-N.D.).
On the House side, Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) circulated the draft letter to Hahn and obtained signatures from 70 Republican colleagues.
A spokesman for the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) didn’t immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Quigley added that her pro-life group believes Democratic officials who push “to expand chemical abortion during this uncertain time for the health and safety of our nation ... repeatedly put the profits of the abortion industry over the protection of women and their children.”
In their letter, the signers also encouraged Hahn to mount “a serious examination of the ethical practices and FDA compliance of clinical trials like the TelAbortion project conducted by Gynuity, a research group associated with abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
“Gynuity’s direct-to-consumer abortion pill-by-mail experiment has been going on for nearly five years and has now expanded to 13 states. In addition to placing the lives of American women and children at risk by offering their clinical study to girls as young as 10 years old, they use women in Burkina Faso in their second trimester as research subjects, despite the high risk of infection and uterine rupture.
“This is also a region where emergency services and blood products for transfusions are in short supply. We find these practices and uses of human subjects to be highly suspect, and we ask the FDA to take immediate steps to review these activities.”
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