FDA Hit With 2nd Lawsuit Over Needless Abortion Pill Investigation

Under our brain-wormed HHS secretary RFK Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary (who has called the U.S. “underbabied”), the FDA has been incredibly dodgy in its proceedings and its reliance on junk science, including using a far-right “study” to baselessly launch an investigation into the abortion bill mifepristone—the second of two pills taken during a medication abortion. On Thursday, the ACLU sued the FDA for revealing close to nothing about any of this, and called on the agency to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

“We demand transparency from the Trump administration and its anti-abortion allies, because this threat to our reproductive freedom cannot continue in secrecy,” Rachel Reeves, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “The people of this country deserve to know whether the Food and Drug Administration is following the science on medication abortion or simply following the whims of anti-abortion.” 

The ACLU’s suit follows a separate lawsuit from the Center for Reproductive Rights, which they filed in September and also demanded the FDA comply with FOIA regulations. “This administration calls itself the ‘most transparent in history,’ but refuses to provide readily available information about medication abortion,” the organization’s Chief U.S. Program Officer told Jezebel at the time. “What do they have to hide?” The FDA has not yet responded to any ongoing FOIA requests.

So here’s your weekly reminder that mifepristone is safe, safer than Viagra and Tylenol (thanks to RFK, we should probably also start advising you that Tylenol is safe too). It’s the most common medicine used for abortions in the country, and in 2023, it accounted for 1 in 4 abortions, largely thanks to shield laws, which allow providers from states without bans to prescribe the medication in states with bans.

But in April, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a far-right think tank that co-sponsored Project 2025, published a data analysis (that was neither peer-reviewed nor backed by science, and has since been denounced by over 200 experts) referring to “adverse effects” from taking the abortion pill. The paper’s since been amplified by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), as well as a gaggle of anti-abortion attorneys general. In June, RFK told Hawley he’d asked Makary for a “complete review” into mifepristone; in August, over 20 anti-abortion AGs sent a letter to the Trump administration; and in September, Makary and RFK confirmed that the FDA complied.

Speaking to a group of college students on Monday, RFK Jr. called medicine “very conveniently a tool of control by totalitarian systems.” I think he might be onto something.

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