Inaction on the abortion drug crisis will not come without consequences for this year’s midterm elections.
As post-Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization retaliation dressed as COVID-19 relief, the Biden Food and Drug Administration removed the very last of any common-sense safety regulations on the abortion drug, mifepristone, making the dangerous drug available on demand to the general public via mail without doctor oversight. The abortion drug is now responsible for more than two-thirds of abortions, killing around 700,000 unborn humans in the U.S. annually and injuring 1 in 10 women who take the drug. Correcting Biden’s error is not only the right thing to do, but it would be an easy way to energize the pro-life electorate ahead of the midterm elections.
A 2026 Cygnal poll is a troublesome canary in the coal mine for November’s midterm elections, finding that 84% of self-described “Trump Republicans” and 85% of “MAHA Republicans” believe the Food and Drug Administration should scrap the Biden-era mail-order abortion scheme and require in-person dispensing requirements for abortion drugs. Seventy-two percent disapprove of the FDA’s approval of another generic mifepristone last year.
The survey’s most damning results for the midterm elections revealed that 32% of the GOP base will be less enthusiastic about voting in November if the GOP abandons pro-life priorities. Cygnal’s senior pollster wrote in his analysis: “This is not a marginal constituency, it is the GOP primary core.” These pro-life voters will impact the coming elections — for better or for worse.
A look back at 2016 and 2024 should serve as evidence for the electoral importance of the pro-life contingency. In 2016, 77% of all evangelical Christians voted for President Donald Trump, constituting the GOP’s single largest voting bloc. Catholics followed at 64%. In 2024, 80% of evangelicals voted for the GOP, along with 60% of Catholics. Evangelical and Catholic voters carried the GOP to victory in 2016 and 2024, and they are also the strongest, most pro-life voting blocs.
The FDA has said it is looking into the dangers of the abortion drug and its effects on women, but whether it completes the study and acts on the abortion drug before the midterm elections could have major implications.
The Department of Health and Human Services has the authority to reverse course on Biden’s blunders and reinstate common-sense, in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion drug, and the FDA has the authority to remove the abortion drug mifepristone from the market for the purpose of abortion while continuing with its safety review of the drug as promised.
There is ample reason for HHS and the FDA to pursue these changes. First of all, the abortion drug intentionally kills an innocent human being. Scientific consensus is clear that human life begins at fertilization when a mother’s egg and a father’s sperm join to create a genetically unique, independent human. The abortion drug is not “safe” as its proponents claim — no drug that kills a human being is “safe.”
On top of always killing an unborn baby, 11% of women experience a serious adverse medical event, such as severe hemorrhaging or sepsis, after consuming mifepristone for a DIY abortion. Drug-induced abortions are the riskiest kind of abortion, with a complication rate four times higher than surgical abortions. Women are not being informed of these risks, and they certainly are not being informed about the trauma of seeing their baby’s hands, feet, and face in their toilet after their abortion.
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What is more, criminals, abusers, sex traffickers, and minors alike can order the abortion drug to their front porches from anonymous online abortion drug peddlers. Pro-life states are witnessing their pro-life laws undermined by out-of-state, sometimes international, mail-order abortion drugs, as Biden’s 2023 mail-order scheme has made it almost impossible for pro-life states to exercise their rights, per Dobbs, to protect unborn babies and mothers within their sovereign borders. Continued federal inaction on the abortion drug allows a Biden-era policy to actively undermine pro-life states’ laws. We are in the mail-order abortion drug wild west, and action to protect women and babies from the abortion drug is more than justified.
At a staggering 84% of “Trump Republicans,” pro-lifers are a core contingent of the conservative base. Whatever happens with the abortion drug between now and the midterm elections, there is no question that both action or inaction will have enormous consequences for voter turnout this November.
Hannah Lape is a legislative strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization. On X: @CWforA