Planned Parenthood attacks Hawley's effort to strip FDA approval of mifepristone

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Planned Parenthood officials in Colorado are criticizing Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., over legislation he introduced Wednesday that would revoke federal approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, sending a fundraising email to supporters.

"Yesterday, Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation to remove the FDA's approval of mifepristone, the safe and widely used medication that has been part of abortion care in the United States for more than 25 years," Sarah Taylor-Nanista, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado, said in an email to supporters that also asked for donations.

On her LinkedIn page, Taylor-Nanista is listed as the chief of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. 

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"This bill is built on false claims that the medication is 'inherently dangerous,' despite decades of scientific evidence showing that mifepristone is safer than many over-the-counter medications - including Tylenol," Taylor-Nanista added. 

Mifepristone blocks progesterone, a hormone needed to sustain pregnancy, and is typically followed by misoprostol to complete the abortion.

Hawley's legislation, the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act, would revoke the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of mifepristone for abortion, allow women who say they were harmed by chemical abortions to sue manufacturers and make the labeling and distribution of mifepristone for abortion violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

"No amount of profit justifies what has happened to these women," Hawley told Fox News Digital in a statement. "Congress must ban the chemical abortion drug and empower women to sue its manufacturers."

Before introducing the bill, Hawley cited concerns about a recent study from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, authored by Ryan T. Anderson, the organization's president, and Jamie Bryan Hall, its director of data analysis.

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The study reviewed a claims database that included 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023 and found that 10.93% of women "experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a Mifepristone abortion." 

In October, Hawley accused the FDA of endangering women's health, saying the agency approved the chemical abortion drug without the thorough safety review it had promised.

In her email, Taylor-Nanista argued the bill "isn't about safety."

"This is about shutting down abortion access - especially medication abortion - at a moment when millions rely on it," Taylor-Nanista said. "Since the fall of Roe, medication abortion has become a critical lifeline for patients in states where abortion care has been banned. And that's exactly why extremists are targeting it now."

She added that the legislation is "part of a broader strategy to ban telehealth abortion nationwide and strip people of their fundamental rights, forcing patients back into the very barriers that medication abortion and telehealth help overcome." 

Fox News Digital reached out to Taylor-Nanista and the FDA for comment. 

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