‘Manhood’ Author Asked Brain Worm Host to Use Bogus Right-Wing ‘Study’ to Restrict Abortion Pills

So on Wednesday, Hawley used his time to ensure that Kennedy would uphold his “pledge” to restrict mifepristone. “Since the last time you and I spoke, there’s been a major study by the Ethics & Public Policy Center of 865,727 prescribed cases of mifepristone, abortions—chemical abortions—between 2017 and 2023,” Hawley said. “Have you seen this study? Are you familiar with this?” Kennedy said he was familiar, but let’s first break down Hawley’s question.

1. 1. The EPPC sounds important, but it’s a far-right think tank whose president is against marriage equality and IVF. On its website, EPPC lists “pushing back against the extreme progressive agenda while building a consensus for conservatives” as one of the institute’s top priorities.
2. 2. The “study” Hawley’s referring to is essentially an op-ed with some muddled statistics titled “The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event.” We’ll get into this more below, but the most important thing is that it was not published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
3. 3. “Chemical abortion” is a term conservative groups came up with to make the abortion pill sound scary. Over 100 studies have determined that medication abortion, which most commonly uses the pills mifepristone and misoprostol, is extremely safe—safer than Tylenol or Viagra. It comprised two-thirds of all abortions in 2023.

Hawley continued: “You will remember then that this data shows…that nearly 11% of women experience very serious adverse health effects, to include sepsis, hemorrhaging, infection, of course, emergency rooms visits. By the way, that’s 22 times higher than the FDA’s current label, which says it’s just 0.5, the incidents of serious adverse health effects.”

But EPPC’s “study” casts a pretty wide net in terms of what they consider a complication from the abortion pill. Contributing writer Susan Rinkunas recently reported:

But mifepristone isn’t just used for abortions—it can be prescribed for miscarriage management. As journalist Garnet Henderson pointed out, EPPC’s definition of “mifepristone abortions” could have turned up claims of people who were given mifepristone without misoprostol, the second drug in the medication abortion regimen, or of people who never even took the drug.

The group also considers needing an abortion procedure if the pills fail a “serious adverse event.” But while it’s annoying when a medication doesn’t work, this is neither a serious nor an adverse result. “This is a known potential outcome of the treatment,” OB/GYN Daniel Grossman told writer Jessica Valenti. “And patients are told that medication abortion is about 95%-97% effective before they choose this abortion method.” So EPPC is over-counting complications.

Hawley then asked Kennedy if he agreed that the FDA should re-review the medication, adding, “Don’t you think that this new data shows that the need to do a review is, in fact, very pressing?” Kennedy said the study is “alarming” and “clearly it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed.” He said he’s already asked Makary to do a “complete review.” Hawley tweeted the exchange, writing, “That’s a win for life.”

But anti-abortion activists have made clear they don’t just want to get rid of telemedicine prescriptions for the abortion pill—they ultimately want to ban the pill entirely. This is laid out in Project 2025, and, more recently, Politico reported that anti-abortion leaders have a plan called “Rolling Thunder,” in which they’ll use the EPPC paper to roll back or completely suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

Another fun fact is that Hawley’s wife, Erin, is an anti-abortion lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom—the conservative Christian law firm that helped overturn Roe v. Wade. In March 2024, she argued a case before the Supreme Court that would have also restricted the abortion pill. (That case is still ongoing.) Further, Hawley’s letter to Makary came two weeks after ADF urged the Department of Health and Human Services to end its federal agreement with a top gynecologist group that recommends insurance coverage of birth control. So getting rid of reproductive rights is really a Hawley family affair.