Abortion Pill 22 Times More Dangerous Than FDA Claims: New Study

A new study shows the RU-486 abortion pill regimen is at least 22 times more dangerous than U.S. Food and Drug Administration labeling indicates.

The study raises serious concerns about the harm that abortion drugs cause.

Researchers from the Ethics and Public Policy Center reviewed insurance claim data from 865,727 RU-486 prescriptions as part of the “largest-known study” on abortion pill complications.

Their data found that from 2017 to 2023, nearly 11% of women who used abortion drugs experienced sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion. That is significantly higher than the FDA’s figure claiming “less than 0.5 percent” experienced complications in clinical trials for the drug regimen.

The study concluded:

  • The FDA should immediately reinstate its earlier, stronger patient safety protocols to ensure physician responsibility for women who take mifepristone under their care, as well as mandate full reporting of its side effects.
  • The FDA should further investigate the harm mifepristone causes to women and, based on objective safety criteria, reconsider its approval altogether.

We have written repeatedly about the dangers of abortion drugs like RU-486.

Last year, Family Council joined a pro-life amicus brief by more than 30 other state and national groups as part of two lawsuits over the FDA’s decision to approve the abortion drug mifepristone, also known as RU-486, and to eliminate safety protocols and standards for the drug.

Among other things, the amicus brief noted:

  • The FDA also removed safety standards requiring a woman to be assessed in-person by a doctor before receiving RU-486.
  • The FDA knew about the significant negative health consequences of mifepristone — or RU-486 — before approving it in 2000.
  • Despite the danger, the FDA has removed safety requirements designed to protect women and weakened the reporting requirements for adverse events caused by RU-486.

Abortion-inducing drugs are dangerous. Official reports from the Arkansas Department of Health reveal that between 2020 and 2022 at least 1 in 50 women who took abortion drugs in Arkansas experienced complications.

Over the years, Arkansas’ state legislators have enacted various laws prohibiting abortion and preventing abortion drugs from being delivered by mail in Arkansas. But the FDA and the federal government have taken steps that threaten to undermine these good, pro-life laws.

This new data from the Ethics and Public Policy Center once again shows abortion drugs not only kill unborn children but also harm women. That’s simply one more reason why our state needs to protect people from these dangerous drugs.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Upselling Death: Guest Column


Last fall, to pressure passage of the Terminally Ill Adults bill in the House of Commons, advocates of legal suicide in the U.K. took an innovative approach. They plastered the London Underground with posters that resembled ads for antidepressants or headache medicine. The most prominent featured a wealthy, healthy woman dancing in her kitchen in her pjs with a big smile on her face. The caption read, “My dying wish is my family won’t see me suffer and I won’t have to.”  

In the U.K., the advertising of porridge (for health reasons, ironically) and politics is banned on the Tube. Upselling death is allowed. Though good Samaritans covered the posters with information for suicide prevention hotlines, defenders stood by the marketing. One spokesman said, “The campaign uses positive imagery of these people living life on their own terms, alongside messages about why they are campaigning for greater choice.” 

The campaign marked a new chapter in death culture. Long gone are the Jack Kevorkian days of peddling cold and clinical death machines. Even the “it’s the compassionate thing to do” and “who wants to suffer?” guilt campaigns have been traded in. This U.K. campaign was about autonomy, the promise of a final way to express one’s “expressive individualism.” In this vision, death is the designer capstone of a fully autonomous life.  

This is the necessary end of the sharp turn inward, to the unencumbered self that demands life, and now even death, on our own terms. Francis Schaeffer recognized that what he called the pursuit of “personal peace and affluence” was, ultimately, a rejection of God as the maker of morality and meaning. Carl Trueman recognized that “expressive individualism” is a rejection of God as the Creator and thus a rejection of who we are in His image.  

But if life’s real meaning is autonomy, why wouldn’t the meaning of death be the same? Previous generations called one another to memento mori, to remember that they will die as a way of knowing how to live well. Ours, fully detached from God, wants to live and die in whichever way we choose.  

To be certain, to demand autonomous death is also to reject God, the One who, Scripture says, “holds the keys to death and Hades.” And, like all claims of autonomy, it is an illusion. The reality is always less choice for the most vulnerable.  

For example, a British judge recently ruled that a woman on life support since May should be taken off because it was “in her best interest to die.” The family, who had been insisting the patient responded to them with eye movements and hand squeezes, says she would not agree to this motion because of her Christian convictions. The woman was pulled from life support late last month. The slope between the right to die and the duty to die is certainly slippery when the state is involved. This is most obvious in Canada, where the euphemistic “Medical Aid in Dying” (or MAiD) has led to the early deaths of autistic people and drug addicts, among others. In fact, everywhere death has been legalized in this way, the “right to die” soon becomes the pressure to and eventually the duty to die.  

There are a number of steps involved in this process. First, the meaning of words such as “terminal” and “hopeless” and “illness” slide down the slope. Soon, they expand to include those not facing imminent death or even a physical condition. Second, in another diabolical play on words, anyone who opposes such “freedom” is accused of lacking “compassion” or care for one’s “basic dignity.”  

Somewhere around this time, the public learns of “financial realities” involved. In Canada, “watchdog” and “oversight” groups released “studies” demonstrating how MAiD would save millions of dollars. According to a recent article in The Telegraph, if the Terminally Ill Adults bill becomes law in the U.K., families whose elderly members choose this kind of death will receive a tax break. In other words, “If assisted dying becomes legal … it could leave someone … with an agonising choice between prolonging their life or saving their family hundreds of thousands of pounds.” 

Our words either reflect or distort reality. That is why, as G.K. Chesterton said, “if words aren’t worth fighting over, what on earth is?” For years, I misremembered another quote from Confucius: “When words lose their meaning, people lose their lives.” Apparently, he actually said, “people lose their freedom.” However, had he witnessed the advance of assisted suicide, he may have said it as I remembered. 

In reaction to the U.K. law, Glen Scrivener posted, “Assisted dying is cheap. Love is costly. Life is invaluable.” His use of these words is correct because, in truth, we are not our own. We are created by God in His image. Life and death belong ultimately to Him.  

Copyright 2025 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

Here Are A Few Of Our Goals for 2025

Family Council has big plans for 2025 in Arkansas. The state legislature will convene on January 13 — and our team plans to be there, working on more than a dozen legislative priorities. Here is a little of what we hope to accomplish in the coming year:

Abortion: Lawmakers are already planning legislation for the coming legislative session that will weaken Arkansas’ good abortion law. Unborn children who are conceived as a result of rape or incest have just as much right to live as any others. Unborn children who may be born less than perfect have as much right to be born as anyone else. We won’t stand by and let them destroy everything it took to make Arkansas the most pro-life state in the nation.

Homeschooling: Anti-homeschool lawmakers are already planning legislation for the coming legislative session that discriminates against homeschoolers by taking LEARNS Act funding away. Homeschoolers are currently eligible for these State funds and we intend to work to see them treated fairly.

Pregnancy Center Funding: The State of Arkansas currently provides $2 million per year in funding to help about 50 pregnancy centers across the state. These tax-funded grants help pregnancy centers provide pregnant women and girls with alternatives to abortion. We plan to work with Governor Sanders and lawmakers to keep this funding going.

Parental Rights and Religious Freedom: We have several bills ready for introduction that will strengthen parental rights in Arkansas. We have other bills that will strengthen the rights of churches, pastors, and businesses who refuse to participate in weddings or other activities that violate their religious beliefs.

Online Safety for Kids: We plan to work with lawmakers on bills that will require age identification and/or parental consent for minors to access social media and other online material.

Abortion and Marijuana Amendments: We need to fix Arkansas’’’ flawed petition initiative laws that enable the wealthy abortion and marijuana industries to pay people to circulate petitions for state constitutional amendments that deceive people. If they have their way, they will keep pushing amendments that will lead to the deaths of innocent unborn children and create more marijuana drug addicts. We and others successfully fought these efforts in 2024. If the laws aren’t fixed, we can expect these powerful forces to try to put their dangerous amendments on the ballot every two years.

These are just a few of our goals for 2025. You can learn more about what we hope to accomplish this year by clicking here.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.