March for Life, partnered with the Pennsylvania Family Institute Announces Speakers for the 2023 Pennsylvania March for Life

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, said in a statement the group “is encouraged by the 5th Circuit’s acknowledgment of the FDA’s reckless decision to lift critical safeguards related to the administration of powerful drugs used in chemical abortion.”

“Most Americans oppose (63%) mail-order abortion which lacks any sort of meaningful medical oversight and places women in danger of serious, life threatening complications, and ends the lives of unborn children,” she said. “The FDA has a solemn duty to prioritize health and safety over politics and should be held accountable for failing to do so.”

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred and must be respected from conception to natural death and as such opposes direct abortion as an act of violence that takes the life of the unborn child.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that mifepristone “remains FDA-approved and available in many states across the country, including via telehealth.”

“But the 5th Circuit’s opinion makes it clear that mifepristone’s approval is very much still at risk, as is the FDA’s independence,” McGill Johnson said. “Pregnant people should be the ones who make decisions about their own health care, and medical professionals should be the ones who make evidence-based decisions about the safety of medications — not judges. The Supreme Court should reject this clearly baseless and political attempt to interfere with our ability to get health care.”

A statement from the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNS, one of the groups behind the challenge to the drug, called the ruling “a victory for our patients.”

“Over the past two decades, the FDA has repeatedly removed necessary safeguards on the chemical abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol,” the statement said. “These deregulations have placed women and girls at greater risk of life-threatening complications, as well as coerced abortion by abusers and traffickers.”

“Today’s ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstating these basic safeguards and stopping the dangerous practice of mail-order abortions is a first step towards reprioritizing women’s health over the interests of the abortion industry and its allies within our profession,” it continued. “As physicians, we will continue to fight for all our patients to be able to receive the best fully informed and evidence-based healthcare possible.”

Even if mifepristone is pulled from shelves, another drug used in combination for chemical abortions, called misoprostol, would still be available. Misoprostol is sometimes prescribed by doctors for early miscarriage, and the FDA has not approved the drug for inducing an abortion by itself.

In January, the FDA eased restrictions on the sale of mifepristone, permitting its sale at retail pharmacies for the first time. The decision followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last year that struck down its previous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, after which states moved to restrict or broaden abortion access.

The FDA states on its website that the drug’s approval was “based on a thorough and comprehensive review of the scientific evidence presented and determined that it was safe and effective for its indicated use.”

On its website as of Aug. 17, the FDA states that mifepristone “is safe when used as indicated and directed” through 10 weeks gestation. The agency’s adverse reaction guidelines for the drug state that “serious and sometimes fatal infections and bleeding occur very rarely.”

But opponents of mifepristone say those risks are more common and more dangerous than proponents of the drug say.