A new report from the Foundation for the Restoration of America (FRA) has revealed two shocking findings: the number of chemical abortions is on the rise, and the so-called “abortion pill” may be far more dangerous than previously known.
According to the study, 63 percent of abortions in 2023 were chemical abortions, a 53 percent increase from 2020. With just over one million abortions nationwide in 2023 – the highest total in a decade – that translates to roughly 630,000 pregnancies that were terminated by the abortion pill.
Chemical abortions typically use two medications: mifepristone, which blocks progesterone to kill the baby, and misoprostol, which causes the uterus to expel it. This method is approved by the FDA for use up through the 10th week of pregnancy and is nearly 100 percent effective. The pills can often be prescribed via telemedicine and taken at home, depending on state laws.
The abortion industry has billed the “abortion pill” as safe for the mother, portraying it as an “easy” way to terminate a pregnancy. However, the FRA report cites data which suggests that an astonishing 11.2 percent of women who underwent a chemical abortion experienced a serious side effect, including sepsis, hemorrhage, ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and even death.
That’s a rate 22 times higher than what the Food and Drug Administration admits, according to FRA – and means that many women are likely unaware of the actual risks of chemical abortion drugs.
“The FDA label for mifepristone acknowledges that about 85 percent of users experience at least one non-serious adverse event including nausea, fever or chills, vomiting, headache, and diarrhea,” the FRA report reads. “However, the FDA’s interpretation of the clinical trial data determined that overall less than 0.5 percent of women experienced a ‘serious adverse event.’ Planned Parenthood reiterates that serious or life-threatening complications are ‘extremely rare’ and claims that the chemical abortion pill is ‘safer than Tylenol.’”
How are abortion providers able to get away with this? Simple: There is no federal law that requires disclosure of side effects and risks of abortion medications to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports that just 28 states require mandatory reporting of complications from abortion procedures.
This means that many women never fully understand how these pills will affect their bodies beyond the termination of life inside their womb – until they actually experience serious complications.
FRA isn’t the first to report on this hidden crisis. According to a 2022 study from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a woman who undergoes a chemical abortion has a four times higher chance of complications than a woman who undergoes a surgical abortion, and is 50 percent more likely to require a visit to the emergency room within 30 days of taking the medication.
While surgical abortions are horrific in their own right, the statistics from the Lozier Institute are shocking — the abortion method often touted as “safer” ultimately appears to be more dangerous. (No abortion is, of course, “safe” for the unborn baby.)
While these statistics are deeply alarming, the individual stories of women who have experienced side effects from chemical abortion drugs are just as heartbreaking. The Alliance Defending Freedom recently posted a chilling testimony in which one woman recounts how “Planned Parenthood sends these drugs by mail — no doctor, no oversight, just pain.”
“They told me that I would see clotting, that I would see heavy period blood. They did not tell me that I would hold my dead baby, that I would see its eyes, and its fingers,” the woman said. “This isn’t a Tylenol, this is a very serious procedure, it is a very powerful drug. When they gave me the abortion drugs, they told me I would experience a double period. I experienced extreme cramping, the bleeding continued for weeks. The fact that the FDA doesn’t require an in-person doctor’s visit makes me feel so angry.”
In light of stories like these and this new data, the left’s embrace of chemical abortion drugs as “life-saving” and “medically necessary” is even more disturbing. “Every American should be able to access medication in a manner that the FDA determines is safe and effective. Mifepristone is one of those medications,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, (D-Ill.) recently said on CNN.
Further, after the Supreme Court preserved access to chemical abortion pills nationwide in the 2024 case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, Democrat lawmakers begged pharmacies to dole out the pills. Following that decision, 60 liberal lawmakers signed on to a letter urging major pharmacy retailers to commit to distributing the drug.
And in case it wasn’t clear just how crazy the left is about promoting chemical abortion, last August a St. Louis-based Planned Parenthood location brought a mobile bus clinic to the Democratic National Convention to pass out abortion pills for free. Even though over 150,000 women experienced one or more serious side effects from chemical abortion in 2023, the pills were gleefully handed out to convention goers.
As use of chemical abortion pills continues to rise and be normalized, data on the serious health threats must be more readily available and accessible to women around the country.
“Three Democrat presidents forced these pills onto the market, then deregulated them – risking women’s lives, fertility, and polluting our water with abortion drugs,” Kristin Hawkins, president of Students for Life and SFL Action, recently posted on X. “One Republican president can change that. HHS, FDA, EPA, and DOJ must do the work.”
Kamden Mulder is a senior at Hillsdale College pursuing a degree in American Studies and Journalism. You can follow her on X @kamdenmulder_.
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