Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined a multi-state petition to remove “burdensome restrictions” on Mifepristone, which is one of two drugs used in medicated abortions.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the use of mifepristone for medicated abortions through the 10th week of pregnancy. The drug can be prescribed through virtual appointments.
Medicated abortions account for 63% of all abortions nationwide and 70% of abortions in Connecticut.
Mifeprex, the brand name of mifepristone, has been FDA-approved since 2000. However, in May, United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the FDA to review the safety of the drug.
A joint petition was filed by the attorneys general in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California on June 5. Tong and 16 other attorneys general, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania, a former attorney general, filed a supplemental petition on Aug. 20.
Kennedy issued the review order shortly after the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) released a report that found 11% of women who use Mifepristone experience “serious adverse events” within 45 days of taking the drug. This study reviewed 865,700 patients who were prescribed mifepristone abortions between 2017 and 2023.
This study contradicts claims made by Danco Laboratories, the company that markets Mifeprex. Danco conducted 10 clinical trials involving 31,000 patients, and reported that less than 0.5% of them experienced “serious adverse effects” from the drug.
Critics of EPPC’s report highlight the fact that it was not peer-reviewed and that the dataset—which was purchased from various unnamed insurance companies—does not specify if Mifeprex was used correctly. The study also includes 3,000 patients who had ectopic pregnancies, or pregnancies where an egg is fertilized outside the uterus, and classifies those complications as a “serious adverse event.” While Mifeprex does not cause ectopic pregnancies, FDA guidelines state it should not be used by people who have them, because it is dangerous.
The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) no longer keeps track of outpatient abortion complications, but it used to. In 2020 and 2021, there were over 11,700 medicated abortions in the state and only five reported complications, according to the Aug. 20 petition.
“Mifepristone is safe, legal and effective,” Tong said in a press release. “Burdensome restrictions imposed by the FDA are about politics, not patient safety, and the extensive evidence we submitted this week demonstrates that. We’re going to keep fighting on every possible front to protect the rights of women and patients to make decisions free from needless political interference.”
The new restrictions require providers to become registered prescribers of mifepristone; require pharmacies to obtain special certification to dispense mifepristone; and require patients to sign a form agreeing that they are voluntarily terminating their pregnancy before they can be prescribed mifepristone.
Connecticut already requires patients, counselors and physicians to sign a consent form before abortions.
The newest petition asks the FDA to remove these requirements. It also includes evidence to support the claim that mifepristone is safe to take and that these requirements are “onerous and unnecessary,” the press release states.
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Birth control is the actual abortion. The term sex just means reproduction.
Responsibility is missing in society, something society needs right now.
People should have learned that the birds and the bees, never included human reproduction.
Common sense still works, as real females taught me. We would have less problems, if people lived with responsibility.
It would cut down on all of the unwanted children and one night stands that create them.