As Donald Trump prepares for his second term as president, the issue of how he will handle abortion is foremost in the minds of many. While Trump instituted some pro-life measures during his first term in 2016, he has since walked back many of his supposedly pro-life principles, openly refusing to support a nationwide law protecting preborn children from abortion and saying it’s an issue that should be left to individual states. Now, he has said he has no plans to restrict abortion pills, either.
In an interview with Meet the Press, Trump spoke with Kristen Welker about numerous issues, one of which was abortion. “
More than half of abortions in this country are medication abortions. Will you restrict the availability of abortion pills when you’re in office?” Welker asked. Trump’s answer, though ultimately non-committal, signaled that he intends to keep abortion pills easily available.
“I’ll probably stay with exactly what I’ve been saying for the last two years,” Trump said. “And the answer is no.”
When further pressed to say if he would commit to that position, he slightly wavered.
“Well, I commit. I mean… things change. I think they change. I hate to go on shows like Joe Biden, ‘I’m not going to give my son a pardon. I will not under any circumstances give him a pardon.’ I watched this and I always knew he was going to give him a pardon,” he said. “And so, I don’t like putting myself in a position like that. So things do change. But I don’t think it’s going to change at all.”
Trump says he will not restrict the availability of abortion pills pic.twitter.com/AkB3CWd36z
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) December 8, 2024
The Trump Administration’s responsibility
Trump took credit for a number of pro-life initiatives in his first term, including nominating pro-life justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. In June of 2022, these three justices joined the majority in overturning Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The Trump administration also issued a rule for Title X funding, mandating that abortion services be separate from family planning services for recipient organizations. He also not only reinstated, but expanded, the Mexico City Policy, which prevents the United States from funding international organizations that promote abortion. Additionally, he supported the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal dollars from funding abortion; the Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved millions of lives.
While running for his second term, however, Trump’s tune changed. He publicly vowed to veto any attempts at restricting abortion at the federal level, and initially voiced opposition to Florida’s law protecting preborn children from abortion after six weeks gestation, though he eventually appeared to change his mind and offer his support. He has criticized some laws protecting preborn children across the country as being “too tough.”
And yet, at the same time, Trump has nominated Dr. Marty Makary to lead the FDA, and Robert F. Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Makary has expressed strong pro-life sentiment — strong enough for the abortion industry to label him an “anti-abortion extremist” who they fear “could weaponize the FDA to effectively ban medication abortion….”
Kennedy, however, has expressed strong pro-abortion sentiment. Yet Trump stated upon his nomination that “[t]he Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country….”
The question is, how will the Trump administration ensure that women are protected from a drug for which nearly all safeguards have been removed, without research to support their removal?
If no one has to report injuries, the abortion pill’s “safety” should be questioned
Abortion pills, as mentioned by Welker, have become the main type of abortion taking place in the United States (63% of all abortions) — something more by design than by happenstance. Pro-abortion administrations have worked in tandem with the abortion industry for years in an effort to make chemical abortions more widespread.
In 2016, the Obama administration first weakened the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS) safety requirements for chemical abortions, making it to where women no longer needed to take the drugs in front of a clinician in person, and expanding the use of abortion pills from seven weeks to 10 weeks gestation. Non-fatal adverse events (complications) were also no longer required to be reported. The Biden administration followed suit, eliminating the requirement for the drugs to be dispensed in person, and allowing them to be sent through the mail. In 2023, it was announced that retail pharmacies could begin dispensing the drugs.
Despite being framed as “safer than Tylenol,” there are numerous potential known complications of mifepristone (the abortion pill).
The abortion pill is known to cause severe cramping, contractions, and heavy bleeding, as well as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headaches. Studies have shown chemical abortion to be four times more dangerous than a first-trimester surgical abortion, and additionally found that approximately 6% of women in at least one study experienced complications severe enough to require an emergency room or urgent care visit. However, the real number of visits could be even higher, as women are encouraged by the abortion industry to lie to emergency room providers and say they are experiencing a natural miscarriage as opposed to post-abortion complications (which then misattributes those complications elsewhere). And thanks to the Obama administration, any complications that do arise (other than death) are not required to be reported to the manufacturer.
It is very easy to claim that the abortion pill is “safe” when the only reason it appears to be safe is because no one has to report any non-fatal adverse events. There is also no federal requirement to report abortions or abortion complications.
The “no-test” abortion pill protocol is even more risky for women. Without an ultrasound or any blood tests beforehand, there is no way to truly confirm a preborn child’s gestational age, and no way to rule out an extra-uterine pregnancy or any other contraindications that may put the mother at risk.
Who will be held accountable?
Currently, three states are suing the FDA for making all of these changes “without any studies that evaluated the impact of removing all of these interrelated safeguards at once.” As Live Action News previously reported:
According to the lawsuit, “[] the FDA has enabled online abortion providers to mail FDA approved abortion drugs to women in states that regulate abortion—dispensing abortion drugs with no doctor care, no exam, and no in-person follow-up care. These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and Idaho and sending women in these States to the emergency room.”
Live Action News has previously documented that mifepristone’s 2023 label still contains a black box warning for sepsis, bleeding, and other life-threatening risks.
In addition, published percentages for emergency room (ER) visits on the drug’s insert indicate that 2.9 to 4.6 percent of women who take abortion drugs end up in the emergency room, indicating that abortion pill ER visits could be in the tens of thousands every year. In addition, the FDA’s medication guide acknowledges that as many as seven percent (7%) of women will need surgery after taking mifepristone “to stop bleeding” or to complete the abortion.
If the Trump administration truly wishes to hold the FDA accountable for alleged harms done to the health of Americans, its first actions should be to restrict a drug regimen that not only injures women without accountability, but which is deliberately intended to end the lives of the most defenseless.
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek: Stop killing America’s future.
Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
