Senate abortion pill manufacturer report reveals lack of accountability

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s new report on abortion drug companies says that the field’s practices endanger women’s lives with little accountability. The report was released as the FDA continues its longstanding review of abortion pills as well as calls for an end to the Biden administration’s mail-order abortion policy.

A committee spokesman told The Center Square that “chemical abortion drug makers profit off killing innocent children while putting mothers’ lives at risk.”

“These companies and third-party sellers have fueled the explosion in online sales of these harmful drugs, opening the door to coercion and abuse of women,” the spokesman said.

“The HELP Committee will hold these companies accountable and protect mothers and babies,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman also referred to a news release on the report from Senator Bill Cassidy, chair of the HELP Committee.

Cassidy’s release said that, after a months-long investigation into abortion drug companies, research revealed “abortion drug companies are putting mothers at risk through their failure to properly oversee the prescription and distribution of their products,” Cassidy said. 

For instance, the report revealed that online chemical abortion seller Aid Access “openly advertises” prescribing the abortion drug mifepristone through 14 weeks gestation, though the FDA approved it only though 10 weeks gestation.

The report explained that in 2016, then President Barack Obama changed many requirements for the pill, such as reducing the number of in-person visits for access to it, extending the maximum gestational age from seven to 10 weeks, and ending the requirement that certified abortion drug prescribers report non-fatal adverse events from the pill to the drug sponsor or drug company.

“Certified prescribers have subsequently only been required to report deaths to the manufacturer,” the report said, meaning that non-fatal events such as “sepsis, infection, [and] hemorrhaging” often go unchecked and unreported, although according to a 2025 Ethics and Public Policy Center study, over 10% of women who take the pill experience such complications.

One abortion drug company – Danco — noted to the HELP Committee that the FDA has “not issued any inspectional observations” to the company’s contract manufacturing organizations (CMO) since 2016.

CMOs are “operated independently and may work on multiple products for different marketing application holders.”

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The abortion drug was approved by the FDA in 2000 under the Clinton administration, with Danco starting as the sole manufacturer for Americans.

The report also noted that the American abortion drug companies are “uniquely obscure” revealing very few details about themselves.

For instance, Danco “has fewer than 20 employees and uses a P.O. Box to avoid disclosing its headquarters address” the report said.

The report details prescribers to mifepristone by state, revealing that states like California, New York and Virginia have the most certified prescribers at over 2,000, over 300 and over 200 respectively. 

Some states such as Louisiana and Arkansas have zero. Most states have less than 20.

Biden’s 2021 mail-order abortion pill policy that does not require a doctor visit for prescriptions makes any state’s abortion pill ban or partial ban void, however.

Cassidy said in a statement: “We are seeing that the explosion in online sales of chemical abortion drugs has opened the door to coercion and abuse of women.” 

As The Center Square reported, mifepristone helps to make abortion the number one cause of death in the nation, costing more than 60% of the 1.1 million lives lost to abortion.

The mail-order, no-appointment-needed abortion pill policy also can be easily abused by those wishing to harm a woman and her child without the woman’s consent or knowledge, as The Center Square has reported. 

“FDA and the sponsors of these drugs have a responsibility to the American people to crack down on these prescribers that violate the prescribing requirements and reinstate the safeguards that keep mothers and babies safe,” Cassidy said.

The FDA has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment on how it will continue its abortion drug review following the HELP Committee’s report.