I Challenge Josh Hawley to a Duel

When it comes to the GOP’s efforts to ban the abortion pill, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is not just a dog with a bone; he’s a raccoon in a dumpster, a leech at a blood bank, an AI CEO on a late-night talk show. He will not give it a fucking rest, and I personally cannot handle another news cycle of his stupid smug face whining about the U.S. still having (some) reproductive rights. So—since he’s clearly so desperate to live in the era where women often just died during childbirth—I challenge him to a good old-fashioned 19th-century duel. If I win, he has to stop trying to fucking ban the abortion pill. If he wins… well, then I guess I don’t ever have to hear him talk about trying to ban the abortion pill again anyway. 

On Wednesday, Hawley introduced a new bill to remove the FDA’s approval of mifepristone—his latest and arguably biggest effort to get the medication banned. “It is time for Congress to do something about this racket—and it is a racket,” he said at a press conference afterward, falsely claiming the abortion pill is “risky” and has “devastating health effects.” I guess being a member of Congress doesn’t mean you inherently understand how Congress works.

Hawley’s been making an extra big anti-abortion ass of himself since it was reported that FDA head Marty Makary is trying to delay the agency’s re-review until after the midterms in November—since abortion rights remain popular among voters and Republicans know they’re at a steadily-increasing risk of losing their trifecta. In December, Hawley wrote Makary another pleading, pathetic letter: “Indeed, it is unclear whether you are conducting an independent safety review at all,” he wrote. “This is unacceptable.” You tell ‘em, anti-abortion Slenderman. 

This also puts Hawley wildly out of line with the Trump administration, which has been trying to get everyone in the GOP to hush up about abortion—a memo Hawley seemingly keeps setting on fire. In January, the administration asked Louisiana to pause its abortion pill lawsuit against the FDA and did the same with Missouri on Friday. As Jezebel contributing writer and Autonomy News co-founder Susan Rinkunas wrote on Bluesky: “Sorry to say but Hawley is running in 2028.” Another great reason for him and me to have a duel. 

The FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000. In 2016, it was approved for use for up to 10 weeks, an increase from the initial seven, and the in-person prescription requirement was removed in 2023. After Roe v. Wade was overturned and access to abortion care was wiped out in large swaths of the country, telehealth abortions became a crucial lifeline, accounting for 63 percent of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023. This pissed off the GOP, since they thought getting rid of Roe meant putting an end to a vital—and sometimes life-saving—healthcare procedure for good.

Hawley has been in an especially frothing rage about this, and took it upon himself to amplify a bogus study (which he cited again on Wednesday) that made false claims about the abortion pill having serious side effects. The timeline of which is fishy as hell—and riddled with the sort of behavior that would have brought us to a field at dawn in 1834.

To recap: in April, Makary attended the Semafor World Economy Summit, where he said the FDA doesn’t currently plan to re-review mifepristone. Then, four days later, the far-right Ethics & Public Policy Center (which is listed as a co-author of Project 2025) published its junk science study, titled: “The Abortion Pill Harms Women.” The EPPC’s study isn’t peer-reviewed, and claims that 11% of people who take the abortion pill experience a “serious adverse event,” compared to the current rate of less than 1% determined by hundreds of other studies. They got this number from misrepresenting hundreds of thousands of insurance claims and massively expanding the definition of a “serious adverse event.” For example, it includes people who were prescribed mifepristone and did not take it, or people who were prescribed it for miscarriage management, since mifepristone isn’t just used to safely end a pregnancy. 

The same day the EPPC released the study, Hawley tweeted it with a letter to Makary, asking him to pleeeeeeeeeease re-review the FDA’s approval, because “the health and safety of American women depend on it.” Less than two weeks later, Hawley introduced a bill to restore the FDA’s previous in-person requirement, effectively banning telehealth abortion. Where’s an angry mob when you really need one? 

That bill didn’t go anywhere, and this bill almost definitely won’t either—all the more reason for him to glove up and meet me at a to-be-determined location. At least one of us should be put out of our misery. Though if history is any guide (and it is), I expect he’ll run away in terror as he did on Jan. 6, meaning I win by forfeit. Founding Fathers’ rules. 

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