Anti-abortion Networks Keep the Fake Studies Coming

It’s almost like it’s not about science or health at all

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What’s Happening?

Anti-abortion lawmakers are promoting a discredited junk study questioning the safety of the abortion medication mifepristone as part of their multi-front assault on women’s health. Mifepristone has become the most commonly used abortion method since 2022, when the Roberts Court overturned Roe v. Wade. This effort is just the latest in a string of attempts to remove Americans’ access to this safe, reliable, and widely used medication.

What’s the Backstory?

After Trump campaigned on leaving abortion issues “to the states,” his new FDA chief Marty Makary said he'd consider restricting abortion pill access if “new data” showed it was dangerous. Serendipitiously, a few days later, anti-abortion groups released a “report” riddled with bad science, even though more than 100 peer-reviewed studies have determined that mifepristone is safe—safer even than Tylenol, penicillin, and Viagra.

The “report” was produced by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit with deep connections to anti-abortion activists. The Washington Post Fact Checker recently dug into the report’s claims about mifepristone. Among other things, the Post found:

• Unlike most credible medical studies, the report did not undergo a formal external peer review before publication.

• The report does not reveal the database it used.

• The paper claims to use the FDA’s definition of a “serious adverse event.” Yet, the second largest category of events are “ER visits,” which the FDA does not identify as a “serious adverse event.”

But Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a staunch abortion opponent, continues to cite the EPPC paper’s junk statistics misrepresenting the safety of mifepristone. And he has used the “report” to introduce legislation that could further eliminate safe abortion access for Americans, whether or not they live in a state where abortion is banned.

Hawley is also using the study to obtain public commitments from Trump administration officials to review the drug and ultimately further restrict access to abortion. Last week, Hawley leveraged this junk science to get Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of Trump’s Human and Health Services department, to publicly consider limiting access to mifepristone…just before RFK Jr. told the HELP Committee that “the American people shouldn’t take medical advice from me.”

What’s the broader context?

Since 2017, EPPC has received more than $3.26 million from anti-abortion operative Leonard Leo’s 85 Fund. Leo, the architect of the right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court responsible for overturning Roe, sits on the board of EPPC, which has aided his efforts to capture the Supreme Court. EPPC’s anti-abortion efforts have also been financed by the vehemently anti-choice litigation group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the group responsible for orchestrating the Dobbs legal strategy that has helped drive every major legal challenge to abortion access post-Dobbs. ADF’s Senior Counsel and Vice President of ADF’s “Center for Life and Regulatory Practice” is none other than Erin Morrow Hawley—who is married to Josh Hawley.

Another familiar name in the EPPC orbit is Roger Severino, who spearheaded Project 2025’s blueprint for eviscerating abortion rights, and who has worked with EPPC as a senior fellow. Severino authored the Project 2025 chapter detailing how to reshape HHS in a second Trump administration, including FDA withdrawal of approval for mifepristone. According to EPPC’s most recent IRS filing, over $500,000 was spent on the “HHS Accountability Project,” an effort to seemingly make sure that HHS policies align with EPPC’s anti-abortion agenda.

EPPC is not doing this work alone. Anti-abortion funders have created a cottage industry of anti-choice groups to push their agenda through the courts and at the state level—using bogus “studies” to give their lies a veneer of legitimacy.

In 2021 and 2022, The Charlotte Lozier Institute, an arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA-PLA), produced “studies” promoting the false narrative that abortion pills are unsafe. These “studies,” which were later retracted by the publisher due to a lack of scientific method and rigor, were used by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to justify his ruling to overturn the FDA’s mifepristone safety regulations. When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court unanimously threw out the case for lack of standing and sent the issue back to the lower courts.

Why does it matter?

Millions of people in the U.S. rely on abortion healthcare to protect their health, safety, autonomy, and wellbeing. Anti-abortion networks continue to work every day to find ways to restrict women’s access to safe and legal reproductive healthcare. Hawley’s junk science campaign is just the latest stage in a well-financed, well-coordinated campaign to ensure that women do not have access to abortion in the United States. Anti-abortion extremists will not take their eye off the ball. Neither can we.

What can you do?

• Share resources debunking the junk science being used to attack access to reproductive healthcare.

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