Happy Birthday, Pill That Kills?
It kills, and so we celebrate its life?
Planned Parenthood sure does. Such is the logic of the world we live in.
And no sooner did we mark the 25th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone (September 28), the first and key pill in the chemical-abortion cocktail, the FDA went ahead and added a generic version to circulation.
A few things about this: it does seem to make no consistent sense given that the FDA was recently ordered to review the safety of mifepristone. As Melanie Israel points out in a birthday piece:
Just how risky is mifepristone?
According to the drug label, 85% of women will have at least one adverse reaction—such as nausea, fever, or vomiting. Eight percent of women may bleed for more than 30 days.
The complication rate from abortion pills is four times that of a first-trimester surgical abortion. Serious complications include severe bleeding, infection, and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. One out of every 22 women who take the drug will end up in the emergency room, according to the label.
Mifepristone has been associated with 36 deaths, thousands of serious adverse events, and hundreds of known life-threatening complications based on post-marketing safety reports. That’s not accounting for weak state and federal reporting requirements, which means the numbers are drastically undercounted.
One recent study even found that the adverse-event rate for these drugs is 22 times higher than the rate reported on the FDA label.
Melanie also points out:
Mifepristone’s approval process was politicized from the start, with officials from the highest levels of the Clinton administration working behind the scenes to bring the European drug to market in the U.S and fast-track its review process.
Over the years, bare-minimum safety standards have been weakened, and in some cases even thrown out entirely.
FDA officials even stopped requiring abortionists to report data about serious adverse events, then turned around and pointed to a lack of reports as an excuse to weaken safety protocols even further.
Now, the FDA has a chance to promote health and save lives by fixing the reckless policies of previous administrations. It’s encouraging that the Department of Health and Human Services says that a review of safety data is taking place.
But let’s be very clear—if the same bureaucrats who approved the drug in the first place are the ones conducting the “review,” that’s the equivalent of letting the fox guard the henhouse.
She suggests an independent review, among other things.
The pro-life office of the U.S. Catholic bishops reacted to the generic announcement by calling it “jarring and contradictory,” given the announced review.
Responding to reports last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved an additional generic for the abortion drug, mifepristone, Bishop [Daniel] Thomas [of Toledo, Ohio] continued, “The FDA took shortcuts in originally approving and loosening protocols for mifepristone, which enabled the killing of more children and placed the health of more women in danger. Even if it eventually had to be approved as a generic version of the same drug, to do so now and make it more available before a recently-announced safety study can be completed and potentially save lives, is a shocking inconsistency. Mothers in need and their preborn children deserve better. They deserve the fullest, most authentic care that we can offer in all respects. I pray that the forthcoming review of mifepristone will undo many of these tragic developments and that we may, instead, meet women with hope and meaningful support.”
It probably makes more sense when you consider that there is, more generally, no moral consistency to the current administration’s position on the existence of the abortion pill, or abortion in general. They are happy to get pro-life applause when convenient, but even the Catholic vice president of the United States has said he’s fine with the abortion pills, even going so far as to mischaracterize a Supreme Court decision during a memorable, disappointing interview. On the generic news, the White House has said it is just obeying the law.
That’s all to say: I don’t know what household name in politics is on the side of innocent human life and women when it comes to these pills.
Mike Pence this week focused on RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, which surely, if consistent, would raise eyebrows at what these pills do to and mean for women and their babies, long and short term, and well, existentially, essentially.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, he said:
It is so disappointing to see the second Trump administration retreat from the pro-life cause with the Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of a generic version of mifepristone, a chemical abortion pill manufactured by Evita Solutions. This is a profound betrayal of the pro-life movement that elected President Trump. The FDA’s approval means more mail-order abortion, more women harmed, and more unborn children lost.
Evita Solutions is explicit about its mission to “normalize abortion” and make it “accessible to all.” By authorizing Evita’s new generic, the administration is enabling the company’s agenda and signaling that abortion pills are simply another consumer product.
Pence, I’m afraid, however, gives the Trump administration too much credit. (Don’t get me wrong. Pence’s pro-life credentials are pure; they just don’t transfer smoothly.) He says:
Bureaucrats at the FDA claim they had no choice but to approve this drug. Nonsense. The executive has the authority and duty to ensure the law protects life and women—by restoring robust safety requirements and in-person medical supervision, preventing reckless mail-order dispensing, and refusing to treat abortion as a legitimate commercial service. Mr. Trump was elected to rein in the administrative state, not abdicate to it.
Earlier this year, I urged the Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as health and human services secretary because he was unfit for the role, especially given the risk that he’d expand access to abortion. That’s precisely what has occurred.
Mr. Trump should act swiftly to reverse this decision. Government’s first duty is to protect the lives of its own citizens, born and unborn. If Mr. Kennedy won’t defend the most vulnerable among us, he should step aside so the president can nominate a leader who will.
I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath.
New York Still on Suicide Watch
After the statehouse finished approving of “medical aid in dying” in June, the Empire State still waits to see what Governor Kathy Hochul will do. When reporters asked her recently about the legislation, she said:
I always have a very solid moral code that never leaves me when I make decisions for New Yorkers. . . . I hear from a lot of people on that issue. There are strong views on both sides of the spectrum, intense views on this. And I’m conscious of that. It’s going to be a very weighting decision on me between now and the end of the year, something that I’ll take seriously and come to the right decision.
City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, points this out in a piece currently on its website:
As Governor Hochul weighs whether to sign the bill, she should reflect on the macabre, life-denying philosophy she’d be endorsing by doing so. Case in point: the arguments for MAiD largely echo those of Lorenz Kraus, an Albany man who confessed on television to murdering his elderly, ailing parents in 2017 out of “a sense of duty” and “compassion.”
Late last month, Kraus sat down for what can only be described as a Hitchcockian interview with Greg Floyd, a reporter with CBS6 in Albany. After initially evading the question, Kraus admitted that he had strangled his father and choked his mother with a rope, before burying them both in their backyard. His parents, he said, “were losing their independence,” and his “concern for their misery was paramount.”
Kraus then pivoted to policy, describing the suffering of elderly Americans as a “societal crisis,” and warning that the country has 40 million Baby Boomers, many of whom will “suffer a horrible death,” as he sees it. “I did the right thing for [my parents] based on the situation,” he said.
Matt Valliere from the Patients Rights Action Fund writes about his late friend Jane Allen:
After struggling with anorexia for most of her life, in 2018, Jane was living in Colorado Springs and getting help for her mental health disabilities, including her eating disorder. She ended up in the care of an exclusive boutique eating disorder practice. She was in and out of hospitals and residential treatment. Jane’s condition resisted treatment, and she ended up receiving a “terminal anorexia” diagnosis.
Jane wrote that her eating disorder doctor, “would ‘make an exception’ for me and ‘allow’ me to die, if that was my choice. It didn’t feel like my choice — I felt coerced and spent an incredibly agonizing months in an assisted living facility.” Jane did not get the lethal prescription directly from her eating disorder doctor; instead, she was referred to another doctor who promptly checked the boxes required under Colorado’s “safeguards,” and saw to it that Jane got the lethal drugs.
Jane’s life was saved at the last minute when her father received a guardianship order from a Colorado judge and was able to have the lethal drugs destroyed. After that, Jane said, “I ate just enough to not die right away. And then I ate more. I weaned off the morphine and all the other hospice drugs that kept me in such a fog. I was getting better, and then I was told that I was too much of a liability and dropped from the [boutique] clinic.”
“I moved from Colorado to Oregon. I have a job that I love, a new puppy, and a great group of friends. I’m able to fuel my body to hike and do the things I love. I’m repairing my relationship with my family, and I have a great therapist who is helping me process all of this. Things obviously aren’t perfect, and I still have hard days. But I also have balance, and flexibility, and a life that is so much more than I was told would ever be possible for me.”
Matt writes, though, that:
A week before she planned to go public with her story, however, she died suddenly of complications to her health caused by over two decades of starving herself. To this day, I wonder whether the months of treatment lost during Jane’s detour into “terminal anorexia” care worsened her condition, whether she could still be with us today, doing all the good. We’ll never know. . . .
God rest her soul. Some of the stories we are seeing of the ease with which assisted suicide is recommended are horrifying. And it frankly makes all-important anti-suicide campaigns make no sense. Let’s unite against suicide, and don’t encourage doctors to prescribe poison.
Please pray for New York. The last thing we need is for the abortion capital of the country to become the assisted-suicide mecca, too.
Talking About Her Embryo Subscription
This is a terrible story. A young couple receives a devastating diagnosis. The husband is told he has a short time to live after an advanced case of cancer is discovered during a colonoscopy.
Tanner Martin died in June at age 30, shortly after they welcomed a daughter into the world. His “internet influencer” widow, Shay, is keeping options open. For $85 a month, Shay Martin is keeping their “six boys and six girls” “alive” — for now. In a podcast interview, the babies on ice for now are described as her “embryo subscription.”
Heaven help us. This should not be a thing. And yet it is. And how many couples have no idea what the moral implications are before it is too late?
Other Things
Attorney General Ken Paxton indicted and arrested eight additional individuals affiliated with the Houston area medical clinics, owned by Maria Rojas, that were providing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without proper medical licenses. Several of the individuals arrested were foreign nationals.
“This cabal of abortion-loving radicals has been running illegal clinics staffed with unlicensed individuals who endangered the very people they pretended to help,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Beyond being illegal, it is evil. These dens of fake doctors will not be allowed to operate in Texas. Those responsible will be held accountable. I will always protect innocent life and use every tool to enforce Texas’s pro-life laws.”
These new indictments follow the arrest of Maria Rojas, 49, of Houston, who unlawfully posed as a physician while operating clinics in Waller, Cypress, Spring, and Katy. A Waller County grand jury indicted Rojas on 15 felony counts, including illegal performance of an abortion and twelve counts of practicing medicine without a license. Court orders have since prohibited Rojas and her network of clinics and affiliates from practicing medicine or performing abortions while the case proceeds.
• Students for Life members encountered a young man who “self-administers an abortion” as a way of protesting their presence on a college campus. At least he considers the unborn life a baby?
• Taylor Swift’s future sister-in-law, Kylie Kelce, on the pain of miscarriage:
“It just — it never leaves you,” she said. “I always like to tell people comparing miscarriages, comparing infant loss, comparing any of this between women, is comparing apples and oranges. It is scarring and stays with you in a way that is yours only. And whether you have a loss at 6 weeks or 13 weeks or whenever, that loss is real.”
Kylie also shared how her husband, Jason, was, and remains, pained by the loss.
Ironically, the Taylor Swift song “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” from a previous album has been considered to be a song about miscarriage, with lyrics that sum up the pain of loss. The chorus is:
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
You were bigger than the whole sky
You were more than just a short time . . .
I’ve got a lot to live without
I’m never gonna meet
What could’ve been, would’ve been
What should’ve been you.
The pain is so real that it is shared even — maybe especially — by women who have had abortions.
Upcoming
• Springs of Love, a ministry for foster and adoptive families, announces Mother Cabrini Sunday on November 9:
From the very beginning, the Catholic Church has responded to children in need of families following the witness of saints like Mother Cabrini, who founded orphanages across America to welcome vulnerable children with love, faith, and dignity. Springs of Love seeks to renew this Catholic tradition by building a culture of fostering and adoption in every Catholic parish.
Mother Cabrini Sunday invites the Church to carry forward this legacy of love by opening our hearts and homes to children in need through fostering, adopting, and walking alongside families who do.
On this same day, many Protestant churches will observe Pure Religion Sunday, launched by the Christian Alliance for Orphans. Now, Springs of Love is bringing this spirit of unity and compassion to Catholic parishes under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, whose feast day we celebrate on November 13.
• Feminists Choosing Life of NY has its annual gala in upstate New York on November 5 in Buffalo.
• Tepeyac Leadership Inc. has a leadership conference in Guadalupe, November 6–8. (I’ll be speaking there.)
• The Human Life Foundation’s Great Defender of Life Award dinner is on November 7 in Manhattan.
• The March for Life will be on January 23, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
• The Cardinal O’Connor Conference for college students will be the next day.
• So will the Students for Life Pro-Life Summit.
• The Christian Alliance for Orphans summit will be next September in Atlanta.
Send me your pro-life news and calendar items at klopez@nationalreview.com.
Leading with Love
I’ll have more about the Leading with Love pro-life intensive this week at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. For now consider what was said by a woman who had an unplanned pregnancy about her reason for dedication to women and their babies — and the fathers, too: “I went to church my whole life and I didn’t know there were pregnancy-care centers.”
We have got to keep that from happening.
More next week. Make sure you and those you love are signed up for this newsletter. The link for doing so is here.
Thank you.