This month, the Senate may consider Heidi Overton’s nomination to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Before moving forward, it should demand answers about the Biden administration’s most consequential abortion policy: eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone.
This policy has caused devastating consequences across the country and drawn national attention.
Most recently, the public learned of a West Point cadet who spiked his pregnant girlfriend’s drink with Xanax, and “when she became incapacitated, he shoved medical abortion pills into her vagina and mouth.” The drugs caused her to start “violently bleeding” and seek emergency medical attention. She suffered a miscarriage and lost her child.
Senators evaluating Overton’s nomination should ask a simple question: should the federal government continue defending a policy that makes abuses like this easier to carry out?
Rosalie Markezich of Louisiana wanted to keep her baby. Her boyfriend did not. Using her personal information, he obtained abortion drugs online, pressured her to take them, and ignored her repeated pleas. The result was exactly what she feared: the loss of her child.
The lesson extends beyond these two women. When abortion drugs can be obtained online and shipped through the mail, abusive partners gain new opportunities to coerce women, evade oversight, and obtain abortions against a woman’s wishes. But despite these cases, the administration has not restored the safeguard that protected women for two decades.
The irony is that this policy survives not because of former President Joe Biden, but because the Trump administration has thus far chosen to continue defending it in court. That can still change. Before moving to confirm Heidi Overton, senators should determine whether the administration intends to continue defending the policy, modify it, or restore the safeguards it removed.
Several states have challenged the policy in court. But the administration continues fighting to preserve it. Restoring the prior safeguard while any further review proceeds would better protect women and their babies. As long as this policy remains in place, any pregnant woman is vulnerable to a third party obtaining abortion drugs and using them against her wishes. The administration should resolve this litigation without delay.
But litigation is not the only solution. I recently sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asking him to reinstate this guardrail, which remained in place for two decades. Federal law empowers the HHS secretary to suspend any FDA drug decision “immediately” if it poses “an imminent hazard to the public health.” The administration therefore already has the authority to restore the in-person dispensing safeguard. The question is not whether it can act, but whether it will.
The Trump FDA claims it needs to study before making any changes. But Kennedy and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary have already acknowledged that the Biden administration allowed mail-order abortion drugs without adequately studying the underlying safety risks. That concession raises an obvious question: why does the policy remain in place today?
The administration insists additional study is necessary before any policy changes are considered. Yet the FDA’s review already raises significant questions. Court filings suggest the agency may be relying on datasets that do not fully capture the period after the Biden policy took effect and on sample sizes substantially smaller than those used in some of the largest published analyses of mifepristone safety.
The review also lacks sufficient transparency. The FDA should immediately disclose its study protocol, identify those participating in the review, reveal any material conflicts of interest, and permit meaningful outside scrutiny of its methodology. These are precisely the questions senators should insist on being answered before confirming new FDA leadership.
The confirmation process exists to secure answers before power is granted, not afterward. If the administration wants senators to entrust Heidi Overton with leadership of the FDA, it should first state whether it will immediately restore the in-person dispensing requirement and explain how the agency intends to evaluate abortion-drug safety.
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As a senior White House official overseeing health policy, Overton has played a central role in the administration’s approach to mifepristone. Before elevating her to lead the agency, senators should insist on a full accounting of that approach and demand assurances that the FDA’s review will be transparent, credible, and scientifically rigorous.
Confirmation is not a coronation. Before taking action on Overton’s nomination, senators should secure clear commitments that the administration will immediately restore the in-person dispensing requirement and address the serious flaws in the FDA’s abortion-drug review. Until those conditions are met, there is no reason to rush this nomination.
Erik Baptist is senior vice president of legal strategy at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. He previously served as senior counsel and director of the Center for Life at Alliance Defending Freedom and held senior leadership roles at the Environmental Protection Agency.