Chemical Abortion is Harming Women
Mifepristone’s Numbers Tell a Different Story
The public debate over abortion is often framed in abstractions, as if it were only about choice or rights or political power. Yet when we look closely at the realities surrounding mifepristone, the drug at the center of chemical abortions, the data tell a sobering story. For years, women have been assured that the abortion pill is safe, simple, and liberating. They have been told it is little more than a heavy period. The truth is more complicated, and it is borne out by official numbers, international registry studies, and the testimonies of those willing to challenge the politically motivated assurances of the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government.
Medication abortions now account for a majority of procedures in the United States. By 2023, they made up approximately 63 percent of all abortions. This means that the stakes in the debate over safety are higher than ever, since most women seeking abortion are now being directed toward mifepristone and misoprostol as the standard method. The Food and Drug Administration has promoted these drugs as safe, yet its own data contradicts the simplicity of that narrative. According to the FDA’s reporting, as of December 31, 2024, there had been 36 documented deaths associated with mifepristone since its approval in 2000. These included cases of ruptured ectopic pregnancies and several incidents of fatal sepsis. The FDA itself has recorded at least 13 deaths from sepsis, 2 deaths from ruptured ectopic pregnancies, and additional cases in which the causes were hemorrhage or undetermined. When total usage is estimated at around 7.5 million, the numbers may look rare at first glance, but rare is not the same as nonexistent, and every single life lost represents a woman who was assured the procedure was safe.
Peer-reviewed studies from outside the United States paint an even more troubling picture. A large Finnish population register study of 42,619 abortions up to 64 days gestation revealed that overall adverse events were four times higher after medical abortion than surgical abortion, at 20.0 percent compared to 5.6 percent. Hemorrhage occurred in 15.6 percent of medical abortions compared to 2.1 percent of surgical abortions. Incomplete abortion was documented in 6.7 percent of medical abortions compared to 1.6 percent of surgical abortions. The need for surgical re-evacuation was 5.9 percent in the medical group and 1.8 percent in the surgical group. These numbers are not anecdotal, but drawn from a national database that tracks outcomes across the health system, making them more reliable than clinic-based self-reporting.
Similar findings appear in official statistics from England. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities compared provider reports through the Abortion Notification System with hospital admission records from the Hospital Episode Statistics database between 2017 and 2021. They found that hospital-based complication rates were consistently higher than those reported by providers, with hemorrhage dominating the complications profile. In 2021, approximately 82 percent of all hospital-coded complications were cases of delayed or excessive hemorrhage. Before 2020, provider-reported complications averaged around 1.6 to 1.7 per 1,000 abortions, while in 2021 the number was 1.4 per 1,000. Yet hospital data revealed a different reality, showing higher and more diverse complication rates that were invisible when relying solely on provider reports. This difference occurs because complications often manifest after the woman has left the clinic, especially now that the pills can be taken at home, and so the adverse event does not always reach the original provider’s reporting system.
Professional summaries in the United States often cite lower numbers, but even these acknowledge serious complications. An analysis of 233,805 medical abortions in the years 2009 to 2010 reported that 0.65 percent resulted in significant adverse events or outcomes. Among these were ongoing pregnancies, significant hemorrhages, and at least one death from undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. ACOG’s own bulletin concedes that transfusion rates, though low overall, are still higher in medical abortion than in early surgical abortion, with a transfusion rate of less than 0.1 percent in medication cases compared to 0.01 percent surgically. Informed consent requires that women be told these differences plainly, since a tenfold disparity in transfusion risk is not something to hide.
The FDA has not only failed to emphasize these numbers but has progressively loosened its regulations. Originally, mifepristone was limited to seven weeks of gestation. The limit was later extended to ten weeks. In January 2023, the agency further modified its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy requirements to permit certified pharmacies to dispense the drug and allowed telehealth prescribing with mail delivery. This regulatory shift has moved abortion further away from clinical oversight and placed women more at risk of facing complications alone at home. It is no surprise that hospital records now capture more adverse outcomes than clinic reports, since many women are taking the pills far from the medical professionals who prescribed them.
The tragedy is compounded by the fact that the Biden administration not only knew these risks but aggressively expanded access anyway, prioritizing ideological goals over women’s safety. By loosening safeguards, promoting mail-order distribution, and pressing to normalize chemical abortion without direct physician oversight, the administration knowingly advanced a policy that exposed countless women to hemorrhage, infection, and trauma. In so doing, it became complicit in harm not by ignorance but by deliberate choice, sacrificing women’s health on the altar of political expediency.
Critics within the pro-life movement have long argued that the FDA’s approval and continued oversight of Mifepristone have been driven more by politics than science. J. Marc Wheat, General Counsel of Advancing American Freedom, has been one of the most articulate voices making this case. He has pointed out that serious incidents were underreported during the original approval process and that the agency has been evasive in responding to concerns about adverse events. In a Freedom of Information Act request, Wheat and his organization called on the FDA to produce the data that would demonstrate what the agency knew and when it knew it. After the Supreme Court’s June 2024 decision, which left the question of mifepristone’s approval unresolved on standing grounds, Wheat stated clearly that the government has prioritized a political agenda over science and safety. His words resonate with a truth that the numbers confirm: women deserve answers and accountability, not slogans about freedom that conceal risks.
The biblical call to justice demands truth in all things, and Scripture condemns false balances and dishonest measures. In Proverbs 11:1, we read that “a false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” When the FDA and pharmaceutical companies minimize risks, when they present glowing numbers from tightly controlled trials while ignoring adverse event data from registries and hospitals, they are giving women a false balance. That false balance costs lives. It undermines the dignity of women and treats them as statistics rather than as human beings created in the image of God.
We must remember that the victims of chemical abortion are not only the children whose lives are ended but also the women whose bodies and health are placed at risk. In the pursuit of a political agenda, Big Pharma and its government allies have created a system where women bear the hidden costs. They suffer hemorrhage, infection, incomplete abortions, and in rare but real cases, death. To shrug off these outcomes as marginal is to ignore the real suffering of real women. Christians who are faithful to the Word of God cannot remain silent when truth is suppressed and when lives are placed at risk in the name of choice.
The numbers should compel us to a greater compassion. They remind us that abortion is not only an assault on the unborn but a betrayal of women. If the prevailing culture is truly concerned about women’s health, it must face the data honestly. Finland’s registry study shows that adverse outcomes in medication abortion are four times higher than in surgical abortion. England’s hospital records show that hemorrhage dominates the picture of complications and that provider reports undercount them. The FDA itself admits to 36 deaths and hundreds of serious events, while allowing the drug to be mailed without direct supervision. These are not abstract claims, they are concrete facts.
The Christian response must be to bring truth into light, to call for accountability from regulators and drug companies, and to stand beside women with compassion that offers them real alternatives. Christ calls us to care for both the mother and the child, and to reject the falsehood that liberation comes through chemicals that end life and harm health. In a culture that has become comfortable with half-truths, the Church must be the voice of full truth, even when that truth is unpopular. Women deserve better than propaganda; they deserve transparency, they deserve care, they deserve support to have and raise their child, and they deserve life.