May 15, 2025
The Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) released their second groundbreaking study on the Chemical Abortion Pill, mifepristone, on Monday, and it’s more bad news for pill traffickers and pill pushers. While the previous study examined the safety of the pill—and found it isn’t safe at all, with 10.93% of women experiencing a serious adverse effect from taking it—this study took a look at whether mifepristone is “effective” in its horrific goal of ending a life in the womb.
Spoiler alert: it’s not.
In the study, the EPPC examined real-world data comprised of 865,727 insurance claims for prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017-2023. The data revealed that at least 5.26% of women who attempted a first mifepristone abortion underwent a second attempt within 45 days due to the pill’s failure to work as advertised. In some cases, these women tried a second Chemical Abortion Pill abortion, and, in other cases, they procured a violent surgical abortion.
In other words, Chemical Abortion Pills’ real-world “failure rate” (if we can call sparing a baby’s life a failure!) is 5.36%, double the failure rate reported on the pill’s label. The advertised rate was derived from clinical trials relied on by the manufacturer and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
READ: TWO NEW TRUTHS & AN OLD LIE: Chemical Abortion Pills Safety Data Worse than the FDA Admits
In light of these findings about Chemical Abortion Pills’ high rate of failure and its serious health risks, the EPPC is calling on the FDA to take action.
“The FDA should immediately reinstate its earlier, stronger patient safety protocols to ensure physician responsibility for women who take mifepristone under their care, as well as mandate full reporting of its side effects,” the organization wrote. “The FDA should further investigate the harm this drug causes to women and, based on objective safety and effectiveness criteria, reconsider its approval altogether.”
READ: Time to Add a Surgeon General’s Warning to Chemical Abortion Pills
The complete removal of this life-ending, health-destroying pill would be a gift to women and preborn children everywhere. But, at the very least, it must be more carefully regulated. When looked at together, the EPPCs two recent studies reveal the hair-raising truth that 13.51% of women who take the Chemical Abortion Pills will either suffer a serious adverse event or a repeated abortion attempt within 45 days. That’s roughly one woman out of every seven.
This is simply impermissible. As the EPPC put it, “Women deserve better than the abortion pill.”
Students for Life of America (SFLA) and Students for Life Action (SFLAction) have long worked towards restrictions on these deadly pills—with the goal of their total removal from the market. SFLAction continues to support legislation in multiple states that would limit the trafficking of these pills and thus save lives.
The work of the EPPC vindicates what we’ve been saying all along: Chemical Abortion Pills are not trustworthy, are not properly regulated, and are deadly—for women and their preborn children.
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The Pro-Life Generation (PLG) is an umbrella organization encompassing the most-cutting edge engagement opportunities for a Vote Pro-Life First Community. PLG includes Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501c4, along with its 501c3 sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA), that together make up the nation’s largest, pro-life youth organization, managing a grassroots political and policy operation engaging Americans of all ages but with a special emphasis on the largest segment of voters — the Youth Vote. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, PLG/SFLA/SFLAction serves more than 1,500 groups on middle, high school, college, medical, and law school campuses in all 50 states. Our team has more conversations with this generation targeted by the abortion lobby than any other pro-life operation in the world, each week reaching more than 4 million across social media platforms and averaging 1.3 million video views. In addition to SFLA/SFLAction, PLG leads multiple initiatives to lead and serve the future of the pro-life movement including the Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, Standing With You, and the Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement. Over more than 17 years, PLG CEO Kristan Hawkins has grown the operation into a more than $20M organization, now preparing for an abortion-free America.
