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Bridging the Divide in American Politics
00:04:14
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| Prove your innocence or be found guilty in a court. | ||
| And that is what these folks are not getting. | ||
| And even though you differentiated with Renee Good, they still called her a domestic terrorist. | ||
| Thank you guys so much. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Join host Dasha Burns. | ||
| Bridging the Divide in American Politics. | ||
| Watch C Spire, Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A, University of Texas at Austin history professor Peniel Joseph shares his book, Freedom Season, talking about the pivotal events of 1963 that impacted the civil rights movement in America. | ||
| That year marked the centenary of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the assassinations of President Kennedy and Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young girls. | ||
| 1963, I think, is the most pivotal year of the 1960s. | ||
| It's the year that gives us both triumphs and tragedies. | ||
| And it's really the year that makes the 1960s the 60s. | ||
| So it's civil rights insurgency. | ||
| It's the Kennedy administration going back and forth with activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and others about what to do next. | ||
| We see a right-wing insurgency. | ||
| George Wallace becomes one of the pivotal figures of the year. | ||
| And people like William F. Buckley in the National Review are engaged in a war of ideas with people like James Baldwin, who becomes the best-selling author and really perhaps the most pivotal figure in the entire year. | ||
| So it's really an extraordinary year. | ||
|
unidentified
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Peneil Joseph with his book, Freedom Season, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app. | |
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. and across the country. | ||
| Coming up Thursday morning, we'll discuss the federal criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Trump Administration foreign policy actions regarding Venezuela, Greenland, and Iran. | ||
| First, with Republican Tennessee Congressman John Rose, a member of the Financial Services Committee, and later with Democratic Illinois Congressman Eric Sorensen, a member of the Armed Services Committee. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Thursday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get. | ||
| You are so fair. | ||
| I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | ||
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
| I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
| I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased and you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
| You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. | ||
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Abortion Pill Safety Hearing
00:14:07
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unidentified
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Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | |
| And now to a hearing with testimony from doctors on abortion pill safety. | ||
| Witnesses and lawmakers in support of the pill, Mithipristone, argued that tightened restrictions on abortion made reproductive health care less accessible, and that having a telehealth option to receive the pill was a good thing. | ||
| This was held by the Senate Health Committee. | ||
| The Senate Committee of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. | ||
| I'm a doc. | ||
| When you're a doctor, you're supposed to take care of your patient. | ||
| When someone is pregnant, there are two patients. | ||
| Both must be considered with absolute care and concern. | ||
| And scientifically and morally, there's no difference in the value of a child whether she is in her mother's arms or she is in her mother's womb. | ||
| And the science is clear. | ||
| Life begins at conception, and abortion ends that life. | ||
| Now, we can't dehumanize the conversation, and we shouldn't normalize the ending of that life. | ||
| Not normalizing a procedure whose intent is to end a life. | ||
| I want to highlight the March for Life next week in Washington around the country. | ||
| For decades, every January, thousands of Americans, very young and old, begin the new year by joining together to march and peacefully call attention to the sanctity and inherent value of every single life. | ||
| And so, for those of you who will march in the weeks ahead, thank you. | ||
| We're here to represent your passion and your action to protect women and their unborn child. | ||
| We'll hear testimony today about the dangers of Mephopristone, the chemical abortion drug. | ||
| Now, these drugs are not safe run-of-the-mill drugs. | ||
| They're certainly not safe for the unborn child, but they can also be potential complications for the mother. | ||
| And so, here are the facts. | ||
| One study showed that nine in ten women who take a chemical abortion drug describe their pain as moderate to severe, and half of women say the experience was worse than expected. | ||
| Another study found that one in ten women taking Mephopristone experienced serious adverse events, including hemorrhaging, bleeding, sepsis, overwhelming infection, or just kind of infection but less overwhelming. | ||
| These are not about statistics, it's about real women with real stories. | ||
| We need to humanize this. | ||
| A woman named Salome described feeling like her insides were being, quote, torn and sliced apart, and quote, seeing blood all over my legs. | ||
| Like many, Salom regretted her abortion, saying, I saw the most heartbreaking thing that I've seen in my time in my entire life. | ||
| I saw my child, and it was at that moment that it sunk in properly that I really have been pregnant. | ||
| I've been carrying the life that I created inside of me until that very moment. | ||
| I couldn't believe what I was looking at. | ||
| It was the most beautiful thing that I'd ever created, and I destroyed it. | ||
| Another woman named Shanice described the cramps as unbearable, saying that it, quote, felt like somebody stabbing me in my stomach. | ||
| Shanice ended up going into sepsis because the abortion drugs left some of the unborn's child's remains inside her. | ||
| After two months' hospitalization and a partial hysterectomy, she had to relearn to walk and perform normal everyday activities. | ||
| So, how do we get here to the point where abortion pills can be ordered online, mailed, taken with no medical supervision, and we have no safeguards against coercion? | ||
| It started when the Obama administration's FDA, pursuing an agenda, removed requirements to report non-fatal adverse events, effectively no longer monitoring the drug safety. | ||
| Now, who could be opposed to making sure that adverse events are reported to the FDA? | ||
| We make so much out of somebody getting a vaccine and having a sore arm that lasts for a day where they got the shot, but we're not reporting when someone has sepsis. | ||
| Then the Biden administration removed the in-person dispensing requirement, which protected women having abortions from serious medical complications. | ||
| It's only through a proper medical exam that a doctor can determine the baby's gestational age, ensure the woman does not have an ectopic pregnancy, and be sure the abortion will not jeopardize future fertility. | ||
| Now, I'm a doc. | ||
| The first rule is do no harm. | ||
| The way things are working here today, it has a lot of potential to do a lot of harm. | ||
| The in-person requirement I feel passionate about. | ||
| Again, prescribing a drug with potential complications with no in-person requirement. | ||
| It means that a medical professional who's trained to spot abuse, to protect the woman from being coerced, can actually interview the patient and find out if she really willingly wishes to take this. | ||
| And now, now, under the current situation, and we'll hear these stories today, someone can order the pill and coerce the pregnant woman into taking them. | ||
| It's straight to their mailbox, no questions asked, and then they coerce the woman to take it. | ||
| That is wrong. | ||
| We should all be concerned about that, whether you're pro-life or pro-choice. | ||
| Think of the women, the girls in abusive relationships being trafficked, whose voices being silent. | ||
| And it just struck me. | ||
| I was in a Southwest Airline bathroom. | ||
| I'm a gastroenterologist. | ||
| Sometimes I go there in my thoughts. | ||
| And as I looked at the sign on the door of the bathroom, it said, if you're being trafficked, tell the flight attendant or call this number. | ||
| Now, tip of the hat to Southwest and maybe the other airlines. | ||
| I've just never noticed the sign before. | ||
| They know that someone may be traveling to some place like a Super Bowl to get trafficked. | ||
| And yet we make these appropriate efforts to protect the young person in this situation. | ||
| But we don't require the inpatient interview in which a physician can ask the young person, wait a second, do you really want this or not? | ||
| And if you don't, tell me about it. | ||
| Wait, you're being trafficked? | ||
| We're calling the police. | ||
| Why do we have it on the inside of a bathroom on an airplane, but not as a requirement for something which is mailed through, which is mailed? | ||
| As chairman of the Help Committee, I urge Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner McCarry to complete the safety review of Mr. Mipha Prestone that they both promised us during their confirmation hearings. | ||
| Republican members of this committee and many other senators expect an answer. | ||
| At an absolute minimum, the previous in-person safeguards should be restored, and it should be done immediately. | ||
| By the way, it's not just Republicans who say this. | ||
| A recent poll that 71% of Americans, including 67% of those who identify as pro-choice, support requiring a visit for the chemical abortion drug to be prescribed. | ||
| Louisiana Attorney General Liz Merle will share some real-life stories of women and girls coerced or drugged with the abortion pill. | ||
| She's holding those violating our state's strong pro-life laws accountable and working to protect these women. | ||
| Dr. Monique Ubenhorst will provide medical expertise and further insight into the dangers that abortion pills pose to these women. | ||
| And she'll dispel the false narrative that treatment for miscarriage, stillbirth, and ectopic pregnancy is the same as an abortion. | ||
| It's an honor to convene the Help Committee for our first hearing of the year to discuss such an important topic. | ||
| Women, families, and unborn children deserve nothing less. | ||
| And with that, I recognize Ranking Member Sanders. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| In a few minutes, I'm going to hand the mic over to Senator Patty Murray, who has been a national leader on this subject. | ||
| But first, let me be as clear as I can be. | ||
| This hearing is not about the safety and effectiveness of mephristone. | ||
| It is not about protecting the health and well-being of women. | ||
| The overwhelming evidence from the scientific and medical community is clear and it is unambiguous. | ||
| Mefropristone is safe, it is effective, and not only has it been proven to safely end the pregnancy, it has been used by women throughout this country and the world to effectively manage a miscarriage. | ||
| That's not what Bernie Sanders' position is. | ||
| That's what hundreds of clinical trials and studies in prominent medical journals have found for nearly three decades. | ||
| That's what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynacologists, the largest organizations of OBGYNs in America, has found. | ||
| That's not my view. | ||
| It's not Patty Murray's view. | ||
| That's their view. | ||
| That's what the American Medical Association, representing over 270,000 doctors, have found. | ||
| That's what the FDA has found for more than a quarter of a century after it approved mephopristone in the year 2000. | ||
| Let's be clear about what this hearing is about. | ||
| It's not the safety of a drug. | ||
| It is about the ongoing effort of my friends in the Republican Party to deny the women of this country the basic right to control their own bodies. | ||
| That is what this hearing is about. | ||
| Four years ago, six Supreme Court justices, all nominated by Republican presidents, decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, abolish the constitutional right for women to have an abortion, and give politicians in state governments all over this country the right to control a woman's body. | ||
| Since this disastrous Supreme Court decision, 13 states have enacted a total abortion ban and 28 states have restricted access to mepristone. | ||
| That is what this hearing is about. | ||
| It's whether in the year 2026 we're going to fight to make sure that women have a right to control their bodies or whether politicians take away those rights. | ||
| Senator Murray. | ||
| Well, thank you very much, Ranking Member Sanders, for letting me speak on an issue I care deeply about. | ||
| The fact of the matter is medication abortion is safe and effective, and we have known that for a very long time. | ||
| FDA had the data to show this when they first approved mifepristone 25 years ago, and its safety was reaffirmed when FDA approved a generic version of this last fall. | ||
| We have a tremendous amount of data showing how safe this medication is. | ||
| More than 160 high-quality studies have been conducted, and millions of women around the world use mifopristone safely every year, with fewer complications, by the way, than Viagra or Penicillin. | ||
| The fact of the matter is, mifepristone is one of the most studied medications we have. | ||
| In fact, in October, a federal court ruled that FDA's current restrictions on mifepristone are illogical and unsupported by the evidence. | ||
| The only reason mifepristone is regulated as heavily as it already is is because of anti-abortion politics, not because of science. | ||
| And now Republicans are holding this hearing to peddle debunked junk studies by anti-abortion organizations which have no credibility and have been forcefully condemned by actual medical organizations to justify reinstating more burdensome requirements and ultimately ripping medication abortion off the shelves entirely. | ||
| We all know this hearing is not about the actual science or the facts, and it's certainly not about what is best for women's health. | ||
| This hearing really is about the fact that Trump and his anti-abortion allies want to ban abortion nationwide and medication abortion is the most common method of abortion in the U.S. Republicans are furious that despite their extreme abortion bans, some women are still finding ways to get the care that they need, and they want to put a stop to it, whatever it takes. | ||
| Of course, the overwhelming majority of people in this country do not want medication abortion ripped away, and they do not want Republicans legislating their pregnancies. | ||
| And I think most people are going to see right through the utter BS that is being staged here today. | ||
| I also have to say I'm stunned that Republicans found time to hold this sham hearing when they have yet to have any held any sort of hearing holding RFK Jr. to account for undermining access to safe and effective vaccines and letting deadly diseases like measles and whooping cough rip through our communities. | ||
|
Abortion Pill Distribution Controversy
00:09:43
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| Wasn't he supposed to be here quarterly? | ||
| Wasn't he supposed to leave the vaccine schedule alone? | ||
| And isn't this committee supposed to be conducting oversight? | ||
| It seems that we will have a hearing on literally anything but that. | ||
| I want to, Mr. Chair, ask unanimous consent to enter into the record eight statements from leading organizations on the safety of mifopristone and a letter sent by every single Senate Democrat last fall pressing FDA for answers on this new so-called safety review of mifopristone. | ||
| We have not yet received an answer to that letter. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| It's my pleasure now to introduce Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. | ||
| Attorney General Mural has a distinguished career in public service and has been at the forefront of defending Louisiana's strong pro-life laws and protecting women and unborn children. | ||
| She'll be to testify today about how the removal of the in-person dispensing requirement for mephopristone has led to horrific instances of coercion and health risk for women and will walk us through the actions she is taking to hold those seeking to circumvent Louisiana's laws accountable. | ||
| Attorney General Mural, Louisiana is lucky to have you as our top law enforcement officer. | ||
| I look forward to hearing your testimony, but before you begin, I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from 17 state attorney generals in support of Attorney General Mural's testimony and advocating against the use of SHIELD laws in connection with the chemical abortion drugs. | ||
| Without objection, it's approved. | ||
| Senator Ms. Murrow. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. | ||
| The United States Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. | ||
| That landmark decision empowered Louisiana and every other state to decide how to address the issue of abortion. | ||
| Louisiana made its overwhelmingly bipartisan decision and reaffirmed its long-standing policy to the right to life of every child born and unborn. | ||
| Louisiana's protections include a prohibition on abortion, quote, by means of an abortion-inducing drug, and it likewise prohibits aiding and abetting and facilitating in the procurement, distribution, or use of such drugs. | ||
|
unidentified
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That should have been the end of it. | |
| But the Biden administration and its pro-abortion partners had long been planning to circumvent Dobbs. | ||
| After Dobbs, the Biden FDA promptly announced that it would remove the in-person dispensing requirement for abortion pills, thereby authorizing mifopristone to be shipped nationwide by mail. | ||
| This was not a medically informed decision, but a purely political one. | ||
| It was not even a legal one because federal law prohibits distribution by mail. | ||
| President Biden recommitted to, quote, doing everything in his power to protect access to abortion. | ||
| To that end, he issued multiple executive orders and, ignoring federal law, directed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to identify, quote, ways to ensure that mifopristone is as widely accessible as possible, including when prescribed through telehealth and sent by mail. | ||
| This culminated in the FDA revising the risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, RIMS, protocols, in 2023 for mifopristone, removing data-driven restrictions that previously required in-person dispensing, which for health and safety reasons mandated mifopristone, this is a quote, be dispensed only in certain health care settings, specifically clinics, medical offices, and hospitals. | ||
| Its elimination facilitated widespread dispensing of mifopristone through the mail. | ||
| This is medically dangerous, unethical, and illegal in Louisiana and many states, as well as federal law. | ||
| The Biden-REMS revision worked as planned. | ||
| Aid Access, perhaps most well-known among the illegal abortion pill distribution facilitators, unabashedly credits removal of the in-person dispensing for its ability to mail FDA-approved abortion drugs, quote, to people in all 50 states, even those that have banned it, unquote. | ||
| To be clear, removing these protections under REMS did not and could not legalize distribution of these pills by mail. | ||
| So the Biden administration's objectives, as directly stated by the President, were to facilitate illegal drug distribution. | ||
| Indeed, abortions have tragically increased in Louisiana and other pro-life states since Dobbs became, since Dobbs, because of the Biden administration's actions. | ||
| Data from pro-abortion advocacy groups indicate 900 illegal abortions occurred per month in Louisiana in 2025. | ||
| That trend coincides with national reported data. | ||
| Behind these statistics is a woman or girl injured by this dangerous, illegal, and medically unsupervised distribution and use of abortion pills. | ||
| A few examples from Louisiana include a woman who was coerced to abort her wanted baby, multiple elements of that by partners or parents, a pregnant woman who took pills that Margaret Carpenter from New York mailed to her at 20 weeks gestation and ended up in the emergency room while her baby was left in a dumpster. | ||
| Another 20-week-old pregnancy, the baby was found recovered in a toilet. | ||
| Activists have created an organized and dangerous scheme of drug dealing protected by politicians. | ||
| These are not medical standards. | ||
| There are no medical standards in any state that sanctions such irresponsible actions by a medical professional. | ||
| And political preferences do not justify placing women at such medical risk. | ||
| These are not medical professionals, and this is not health care. | ||
| Shield laws in some states protect providers from liability and effectively nullify laws in our states. | ||
| Their purpose is to make it more difficult to sue or prosecute individuals in those states where abortion drugs are prohibited. | ||
| They also make it more difficult for women coerced into abortion, taking abortion drugs, to bring their abusers to justice. | ||
| The Biden FDA's removal of in-person dispensing requirements had its intended effect. | ||
| But for the 2023 RIMS, activists could not blanket our states, like Louisiana, with Mifepristone by mail. | ||
| The 2023 RIMS must be vacated. | ||
| Until then, Louisiana's efforts to protect mothers and their unborn children and to hold out-of-state abortion pill traffickers accountable for the harm they inflict will be all but futile. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Before introducing Dr. Wubenhorst, who got the award for the most interesting name this entire year, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record letters from the Louisiana Family Forum and Louisiana Right to Life. | ||
| Both letters further underscore Attorney General Neural's testimony about the harms that unfettered access to mail-order chemical abortion drugs cause women in our state. | ||
| And I now turn to Senator Banks to introduce Dr. Wubenhorst. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Monique Wubenhorst, a practicing board-certified OBGYN with more than 30 years of experience in patient care teaching, research, health policy, and global health. | ||
| Dr. Wibenhorst is a senior fellow with the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at Notre Dame and an adjunct professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine. | ||
| She also cares for patients at two Indiana hospitals. | ||
| In her medical practice, Dr. Rubenhorst is focused on providing OBGYN care to impoverished women at home and abroad. | ||
| She has also authored over 20 peer-reviewed articles and has served on review boards for peer-reviewed medical journals. | ||
| Dr. Rubenhorst, thank you for being here today, and I look forward to hearing your testimony on the dangers that chemical abortion pills pose to women, especially. | ||
| It's great to have a Hoosier here who is such a staunch defender for the unborn and for women. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. | ||
| I think it's really important, and I'm glad that you called this hearing. | ||
| I appreciate your leadership. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Senator Banks, and we're excited about Indiana football gohooters. | |
| So abortion is a subject of intense interest. | ||
| And good morning, excuse me. | ||
| Good morning, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders. | ||
| Director, can you pull the microphone a little bit closer to your mouth? | ||
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unidentified
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How's that? | |
| Wonderful. | ||
|
unidentified
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Ranking Member Sanders and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here. | |
| It is an honor. | ||
| Abortion is a subject of intense interest, debate, and legislative action, and so we need to give grave consideration to its risks and purported benefits. | ||
|
Risks of Chemical Abortion
00:02:59
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unidentified
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Mifopristomisopross was now the predominant method of abortion, accounting for almost 60 percent of abortions in 2022. | |
| And we now have data to document and examine negative outcomes associated with the use of chemical abortion. | ||
| We all know that the regimen includes both mifropristone and mesoprostal, and this is associated with significant short- and long-term physical and mental health harms to women. | ||
| These are documented by international studies as well as studies in the United States, including studies in the Scandinavian countries, which are not pro-life countries. | ||
| The different risks that are associated are bleeding infection, hemorrhage, need for transfusion, and perforation. | ||
| Now, while perforation is not a risk with chemical abortion alone, an estimated 6% or 1 in 17 women will require surgical intervention, and these women are exposed to both the risks of chemical and surgical abortion. | ||
| In the UK, an estimated 10,000 women per year were treated in emergency rooms in 2022 and 23 for complications arising from an abortion. | ||
| Another risk is undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. | ||
| There have recently been documented deaths from chemical abortion. | ||
| Abortion, in general, including mifopristone mesoprostel, is associated with serious psychological and social harms for women. | ||
| A recent study in Canada by Dr. Auger and her colleagues found that it markedly increased the risk for inpatient psychiatric admission, the most severe form diagnosed forms of mental health. | ||
| It is also associated with sex trafficking, child sex abuse, and domestic violence. | ||
| I'm aware of a case of a young girl who is age 16 who came in with severe sepsis to the emergency room when queried about what was the cause of her missed abortion. | ||
| It turned out that she had been given abortion pills by her teacher, who gave them to her and skip town, presumably to do the same thing to another one of his students. | ||
| And abusers have been known to force abortion pills down women's throats, put them in their drinks, and insert them into their bodies. | ||
| Mifipristone mesoprostol and is mifropristone is not safer than Tylenol and should not be made available over-the-counter. | ||
| Tylenol is an over-the-counter medication. | ||
| It does not have a black box warning. | ||
| Most problems with Tylenol are associated with accidental or deliberate overdose. | ||
| Mifropristone side effects are associated with routine prescribed use. | ||
| Elective abortion is intentional feticide. | ||
| It is not the same as care for an ectopic pregnancy, which is treatment to save a mother's life. | ||
| It is not the same as care for an in utero demise where the fetus is already demised. | ||
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Substantial Evidence Indicated
00:15:39
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unidentified
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And it is not the same as care for miscarriage. | |
| Abortion in African American women is a pervasive problem. | ||
| There is a remarkable racial disparity in abortion rates between African American and European women in many states. | ||
| In particular, in some states, approximately the rates are three to five times of abortion in black women compared with white women. | ||
| The practice of standard telemedicine is highly regulated, and therefore the prescribing of abortive facial drugs virtually should not be legitimized by calling it telemedicine. | ||
| This is more properly called remote abortion. | ||
| In these cases, a woman cannot have her pregnancy accurately dated. | ||
| The woman cannot be assessed medically. | ||
| No, sorry. | ||
| I would like to conclude by stating that our concern is for the woman, and access to any medical intervention should never come at the expense of safety. | ||
| Authorities should continue to help decrease chemical abortions' harms to women, including through strengthening the realms and enforcement of existing regulations such as the Compstock Act. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you, Dr. Muppenhorst. | ||
| And Senator Sanders will now introduce his witness. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'd like to introduce Dr. Nisha Verma, who is an obstetrician and gynecologist and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. | ||
| Dr. Verma practices in both Massachusetts and Georgia and has conducted research on the impacts of abortion restrictions on women with high-risk pregnancies. | ||
| Dr. Verma, thanks very much for being with us today. | ||
| Good morning, Chair Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and distinguished members of the Senate Help Committee. | ||
| My name is Dr. Nisha Verma, and I am a double board-certified fellowship-trained obstetrician and gynecologist and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. | ||
| I provide full-spectrum care in Georgia and Massachusetts. | ||
| That means that I provide everything from pap smears and cancer screenings to delivering babies to supporting people postpartum to providing contraception, abortion, and miscarriage care. | ||
| As a doctor, I know that abortion care can be complicated for many people. | ||
| I sit with that complexity every day, as do so many of my patients and their families. | ||
| Holding space for complexity is important, but discomfort with abortion can't be used as an excuse to distort facts. | ||
| So let's talk about the facts. | ||
| The fact is, the science on Mifipristone's safety and effectiveness is long-standing and settled. | ||
| Over the past 25 years, medication abortion using Miffipristone and mesoprostol has been rigorously studied and proven safe and effective in over 100 high-quality peer-reviewed studies. | ||
| Extensive data show that medication abortion through telehealth is equally safe and effective and provides vital access for those who live in rural areas and in the growing number of maternity care deserts in the country. | ||
| Medication abortion is now the most common method of abortion care in the United States, used by more than 7.5 million people since its FDA approval in 2000. | ||
| The small number of studies that contradict this track record of safety are deeply flawed. | ||
| In fact, two of the less than 10 have been retracted. | ||
| When we look to the full body of high-quality evidence, it is clear that the safety and effectiveness of Miffipristone and mesoprostol is not a matter of opinion or debate. | ||
| It is the clear consensus of the evidence-based medical community, both here in the United States and globally. | ||
| Leading professional organizations, including the American College of OBGYNs and American Medical Association, affirm this fact, as does the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. | ||
| Globally, the World Health Organization classifies Mifipristone and mesoprostol as essential medications, among the safest and most effective treatments that should always be available. | ||
| In my practice, I regularly prescribe Mifipristone and Mesoprostol because I know they are safe and allow my patients to access the highest quality care. | ||
| When I prescribe these medications, I counsel my patients, ensure they understand their options, review potential side effects and risks, just as I would with any treatment, and support them in making the decisions that are right for them. | ||
| Miscarriages occur in 10 to 26 percent of all pregnancies, and I often care for women and families experiencing the loss of a highly desired pregnancy who wish to treat their miscarriage with medication. | ||
| For these patients, Miffipristone, along with mesoprostel, speeds up the process, reduces pain, and decreases the need for additional treatments. | ||
| Knowing that miphipristone and mesoprostol are safe and effective for miscarriage management, I took these medications myself a few months ago after my husband and I experienced a devastating pregnancy loss. | ||
| Luckily in Massachusetts, we were able to obtain these medications from our local pharmacy and complete this very emotionally difficult process safely, privately, and at home. | ||
| Unfortunately, for many people, unnecessary restrictions on Miffy Pristone make this evidence-based care unavailable and force them to undergo additional hardship during already heartbreaking experiences. | ||
| Miffy Pristone and Mesoprostyl are safe. | ||
| However, my patients do face many real, well-documented threats to their health, well-being, and lives. | ||
| My patients are at risk because of restrictions on abortion care and cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| They are at risk because of decreased funding to clinics that provide preventive care and cancer screenings and fears about whether they can safely go to the hospital based on their immigration status. | ||
| And they are at risk because of the ever-increasing crisis of maternal mortality, widespread misinformation about vaccines, and disregard of science and evidence. | ||
| As a doctor, I have the immense privilege of sitting with patients and their families and learning about their lives. | ||
| My patients remind me every day that abortion care, pregnancy, and medicine are not isolated political issues. | ||
| And I chose to be here in this room today as challenging as it might be for them to honor them. | ||
| I hope moving forward, this committee will focus on addressing the many real documented dangers patients face rather than restricting access to safe evidence-based care. | ||
| Thank you for having me, and I look forward to your questions. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I shall begin with questions. | ||
| Doctors, thank you all very much for seeing patients. | ||
| I really appreciate that. | ||
| Dr. Verma, you mentioned not restricting access to safe, evidence-based care. | ||
| Would you prescribe these drugs for someone at week 20 of her pregnancy? | ||
| Thank you for that question. | ||
| What we are seeing with some of the kids that have been informed. | ||
| Would you prescribe, it's only FDA approved up to week 10. | ||
| Would you prescribe these drugs for someone who is at week 20 of her pregnancy? | ||
| I would not prescribe them in the way you're describing. | ||
| What we're talking about here. | ||
| Let her answer the question. | ||
| No, she answered the question. | ||
| It's not here to go beyond answering the question, Bernie. | ||
| Next. | ||
| Attorney General Murrow, you spoke of in your testimony two women who are prescribed this medicine taking it after week 20. | ||
| Did I hear that correctly? | ||
| With the gestation age. | ||
| Your microphone, please. | ||
| The gestational age, as determined by the doctors at the emergency room that treated these women, said that the babies were approximately 20 weeks. | ||
| So, yes. | ||
| Dr. Verma suggested that telehealth is an appropriate way to prescribe this. | ||
| But again, if I listen to your testimony carefully, and I did, you don't have to have a telehealth visit. | ||
| I think you spoke of just filling out a form online with no history taken. | ||
| Did I hear that correctly? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's correct. | |
| It's a form that you fill out online. | ||
| There is no human contact at all. | ||
| No human contact. | ||
| And the paperwork that comes with the pills, and we know this because we conducted a controlled buy of these pills through this process, the paperwork that you received. | ||
| We also know this through one of the cases, Rosalie Markozich's case. | ||
| We know this. | ||
| There's actually some common ground here. | ||
| Dr. Verma has suggested that it should be evidence-based and that some sort of human contact is implied. | ||
| And what I'm hearing from you is that it's being prescribed, according to the physician who actually examined the patient post-loss of the child, is that they were gestational week 20 and there had been no contact necessarily. | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| There's no human contact in this process. | ||
| Dr. Ubenhorst, is that like standard of care? | ||
| No human contact to prescribe a medication like this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would say it's not only a standard of care, but it's irresponsible. | |
| For example, if I had a pregnant woman who came in with a bladder infection and I just talked to her on the phone and prescribed an antibiotic, that would be malpractice. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Now, Dr. Ubenhorst, Attorney General Mural, very disturbing, spoke about women being coerced to have this, to take these pills. | ||
| You mentioned it too. | ||
| Can you comment further on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, there's substantial evidence in the medical literature that many abortions are coerced. | |
| In addition to that, there are published or yes, I would say published 19 cases where, as I mentioned in my testimony, boyfriends, abusers forced women to have an abortion. | ||
| And so that's just the tip of the iceberg. | ||
| And Attorney General Murray, Tony Clayton, the district attorney, I think, in Poinkape Parish, can you describe the case? | ||
| I think it was the mother that forced the young lady to take the pill, and there's a complication. | ||
| Can you describe it? | ||
| Her mother, she was 16 years old, and her mother, who had a documented history of severe physical abuse of that same child, coerced her into taking the pills because she did not want the burden of an added baby. | ||
| The little girl, the young woman, had been planning a gender reveal party, and instead of having a gender reveal party, she was undergoing an abortion after her mother supervised, saw her take the pills and then abandoned her to abort the baby alone. | ||
| She panicked and called 911. | ||
| She did testify, and the mother was indicted, and the clinic was indicted, and the doctor has been indicted. | ||
| Governor Kathy Hochle has blocked our extradition of the doctor to hold the doctor accountable for giving the pills to the mother who coerced her daughter to have an unwanted abortion. | ||
| Dr. Rubenhorst, you and Dr. Verma spoke about the in-person interview as the opportunity to make sure that someone understood the implications of taking these pills and to make sure they're not being abused. | ||
| If that young lady had had an in-person interview, would you have been able to see that it was her mother dictating her course of action and she was being coerced? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, one of the things that we try to do when we have these inpatient interviews is to sit down with the woman alone, apart from her mother or her boyfriend, whoever may be trying to abuse her, and to ask these questions. | |
| And when I have done this, when women are in an abusive relationship or trafficking, they will say, you're the first person who's ever asked me about this, and they will disclose. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| Senator Sanders. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Let me ask Dr. Verma. | ||
| Simple question. | ||
| Who do you think is best prepared to determine whether methropristone is safe and effective? | ||
| Do you think it is members of a state legislature? | ||
| Do you think it is United States senators? | ||
| Or do you think it should be organizations like the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and doctors and scientists who for decades have studied the issue? | ||
| Thank you for the question. | ||
| As a doctor, I know that people are capable of making these decisions for themselves. | ||
| They are the experts on their own lives and can make these decisions guided by evidence, science, and what's happening in their own lives. | ||
| Let me ask you another question. | ||
| I was interested in what the Attorney General said. | ||
| Very simple question. | ||
| We live in a society where everybody here talks about freedom, right? | ||
| We all believe in freedom. | ||
| Who should make the decision regarding her own body? | ||
| Should that be a woman? | ||
| It should be the United States Senate, governors, attorney generals. | ||
| Who should make that decision? | ||
| People should be able to make decisions for themselves, guided by their family, supported by their families, guided by evidence and science. | ||
| And I do want to highlight, again, some misinformation that we've been hearing around the source of some of the harm that we're seeing right now. | ||
| A lot of the cases that we're hearing about are a direct result of abortion bans and restrictions. | ||
| People are desperate because they cannot get the care that they need in their communities with their trusted clinicians and people in their communities in the way that they need. | ||
| And that is why we are seeing these cases come up. | ||
| It is a direct result of abortion bans and restrictions. | ||
| Access makes people safer. | ||
| Dr. Vermer, can you speak for a moment about what happens when states limit access to mifropristone? | ||
| Can you talk about what it means at a state like Louisiana and many others, if women, for whatever reason, want to terminate a pregnancy and have no other options? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Limiting access to mifipristone, mesoprostal, medications that we know are safe and effective, takes important evidence-based treatments away from people. | ||
| And we're seeing, you mentioned Louisiana, we're seeing Louisiana has now made these medications controlled substances. | ||
| And we're seeing the dramatic impact that that's having on people that need abortion care, that are experiencing miscarriages, and people that are, for example, having postpartum hemorrhages. | ||
| I've heard from my colleagues in the state and heard from, for example, the Department of Public Health in New Orleans has said this is very much harming people in the state. | ||
| So, for example, when you have a patient that's having a postpartum hemorrhage, I've been in many of these situations as a doctor that provides care on labor and delivery. | ||
| I need access to those medications right away. | ||
| That is a life-threatening emergency. | ||
| It's one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. | ||
| I need to be able to access safe medications right away to save that patient's life. | ||
| And so we're seeing the impact of these restrictions and things limiting access to mefupistone and mesoprostal, not just on patients who need abortion care, but a whole range of care that is life-saving for them. | ||
|
Telehealth Abortion Safety Concerns
00:15:47
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| If I could ask the Attorney General, Myrtle, a brief question. | ||
| If I understood you correctly, you said that over 900 women a month are turning to mephropistone. | ||
| Was I correct in hearing that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| In Louisiana. | ||
| Those are statistics from a pro-abortion advocacy group. | ||
| But you kind of indicated you think that might be in the ballpark. | ||
| It's the best, it's the only data that we have. | ||
| All right. | ||
| If a woman in Louisiana turns to mephropristone because she has no other option, or that's the choice, that's 10,000 women a year in Louisiana. | ||
| What do you tell those women who, for whatever reason, you may agree with it, I may agree with it, we may not, make a decision that for their lives they want to terminate a pregnancy. | ||
| What do you say to 10,000 women in Louisiana a year? | ||
| Do you think they have the right to make that choice or do they not? | ||
| Senator Sanders, the policy decision of the overwhelmingly bipartisan legislature in Louisiana has enacted laws to protect the women of Louisiana. | ||
| And I think that the issue here that you and maybe other people don't want to talk about is that we live in a land of the rule of law and that that is the law of Louisiana. | ||
| And so they can seek that care in another state. | ||
| Sorry to cut you short here, but I just have a few seconds. | ||
| In other words, essentially what you're saying, 10,000 women a year in Louisiana make a decision, and that decision is overridden by the state legislature rather than their own choice. | ||
| I think that's unfortunate. | ||
| Senator Sanders, you know, I would also continue to say that it is illegal, it is unethical, and it is immoral for them, for anyone to send pills to someone with no medical supervision and then tell them to lie at the hospital. | ||
| Yeah, well, that happens because of the laws of your state. | ||
| No, it happens because people from outside our state are sending them into our state to nullify our state laws. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's why it happens. | |
| OBG1, Dr. Roger Marshall. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Good morning, everybody, to our witnesses. | ||
| Dr. Verma, do you not have other Posten drugs to treat postpartum hemorrhages like Prosten M? | ||
| Is that the only drug that's out there that works? | ||
| We have a few medications to treat postpartum hemorrhage, and when I am in situations where someone... | ||
| I know what you're saying. | ||
| I delivered a baby every day for 30 years. | ||
| I know your situation, but there are other alternatives out there. | ||
| No one here is trying to take those away. | ||
| These abortion drugs, you know, category A drugs are safe, B are probably safe. | ||
| C, what type of category drug are these prostaglandin drugs that you prescribe? | ||
| In Louisiana, now they have been made-controlled substances. | ||
| And I would like to highlight when I'm in a situation with a postpartum hemorrhage, yes, there are other medications. | ||
| We'll let you answer that later on someone else's time. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| But you would agree with me that these prostaglandin drugs are category X drugs. | ||
| The answer is yes. | ||
| They are category X drugs. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Dr. Wabenhurst, get that right? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I think, like you, delivered a baby every day of my life for 30 years, nearly every day for 30 years. | ||
| A woman comes in for her first visit, and she tells you when her last menstrual cycle was. | ||
| It's pretty common for them to be off. | ||
| In fact, it's very common to be off about a month. | ||
| It would not be unusual. | ||
| Would you agree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Dr. Marshall. | |
| And actually, I would add to that that I recently had a woman come in because she was having some bleeding and abdominal pain and she was 23 weeks and didn't know it. | ||
| Very common. | ||
| We've all had that patient in the ER with abdominal pain five minutes apart and they're getting ready to do an appendicitis on her. | ||
| They call in the OBS. | ||
| Oh my gosh, she's having a baby. | ||
| I think you would also agree with me, Doctor, that the failure rate of these abortion drugs is probably around 5% at less than 10 weeks. | ||
| But the failure rate of giving it to a 14-week person over the phone, the failure rate is probably 10%. | ||
| Failure rate meaning it doesn't work, right? | ||
| Would an ultrasound, not only seeing the patient in person, but having an ultrasound at your helm there, impact your decision-making? | ||
| And you and I don't prescribe these abortion drugs, but taking care of a miscarriage, similar. | ||
| You and I have taken care of thousands of miscarriages. | ||
| Would you add any color to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I would say that there would be a substantial change. | |
| That's because once you get into the second trimester, the risk of hemorrhage increases dramatically. | ||
| Yeah, so my point is, you do this visit over the phone. | ||
| The young lady thinks she's eight weeks. | ||
| And I have so much compassion for these young ladies. | ||
| They're scared and they need help, and that's why I opened up my practice, regardless of your ability to pay, to say, look, if you, I had more than one patients come into my office that said they'd been to Planned Parenthood and they were being coerced into abortion and she came to my office and said, is there anything else we can do, doctor? | ||
| Do I have to have an abortion? | ||
| And I said, of course, we'll take care of you. | ||
| We're going to get you hooked up with Catholic Social Services and we're going to get you a medical card. | ||
| We're going to do whatever it takes. | ||
| But my point is this. | ||
| That same patient calls me from home or just goes to the pharmacy and picks this drug up. | ||
| They think they're 10 weeks, but they're actually 14 weeks. | ||
| There's a 10% chance of this drug not working. | ||
| And the risk factors associated with this x-rated drug, I'm going to have to read them because I didn't realize this. | ||
| 5% of the babies that go on to deliver that took this drug, 5% of them have a major, major fetal malformation, limb deformities. | ||
| So it's like they're missing fingers, they're missing digits, cranial nerve palsies. | ||
| Think like Bell's palsy, you can't open your eyelids, you can't smile, cranial nerve palsies, cranial facial defects, and of course premature births. | ||
| Doctor, I'm going to come back to you. | ||
| Do you think an ultrasound seeing the patient in person is beneficial and safe, and not doing so is below the standard of care? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would agree with that. | |
| And I would also add that ACOG in his committee opinion says that any pregnancy that is not dated by ultrasound is suboptimally dated. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Dr. Verma, you take care of ladies with miscarriage, and I'm sorry for your loss as well. | ||
| It's one of my, you know, just worst days is taking care of a woman with the miscarriage. | ||
| Do you do ultrasounds typically when a person comes to your office for a threat and miscarriage? | ||
| I do ultrasounds in a lot of different settings, including when a patient is unsure of their last menstrual period. | ||
| But do you, can you, and I'm sorry, I know you're kind of been coached to go offline here, but do you do an ultrasound on every patient that comes to your office with a threat and miscarriage to figure out how far along they are? | ||
| I do ultrasounds again in many different situations. | ||
| I think the misinformation here is that when a patient comes. | ||
| Dr. Walpiners, do you do ultrasounds when patients come to your office with a threatened miscarriage? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Dr. Verma, last question. | ||
| Would an ultrasound and seeing the patient in person be helpful to you in making the determination of whether you would prescribe these abortion pills? | ||
| When a patient is unsure about their last menstrual period, we do connect them with ultrasound. | ||
| What's limiting their ability to get that ultrasound is abortion bans and restrictions in their communities? | ||
| don't have an ultrasound in your office? | ||
| In situations where patients are getting. | ||
| Do you have an ultrasound in your office? | ||
| Because you're talking about telehealth care. | ||
| The answer is yes. | ||
| Telehealth taking care of ectopic pregnancies, threatened miscarriages, prescribing abortion pills is below the standard of care. | ||
| You're putting women's lives at danger. | ||
| Senator Murray. | ||
| Dr. Vermin, do you want to finish answering your question, please? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So I just want to talk a little bit about telehealth care, which is an important way to improve access for people, including people in abusive relationships. | ||
| We have data showing that for people that are in these abusive relationships, telehealth is a critical tool that helps them get the care that they need. | ||
| And actually, when we're doing telehealth, we have very strict screening processes. | ||
| And so if there are signs of an ectopic pregnancy, we would connect them with further care. | ||
| If we're unsure or they're unsure about their last menstrual period, we would recommend an ultrasound. | ||
| And I really want to highlight here what's limiting people's ability to get that additional care is abortion bans and restrictions. | ||
| That is why we are seeing these cases because patients can't get that follow care in their communities. | ||
| They're scared to go to the hospital if they need to because of fear of being criminalized. | ||
| But that's what's making the care unsafe. | ||
| We actually have very strict processes that guide our telehealth care, just like our in-person care. | ||
| Thank you very much for that response. | ||
| You know, one talking point that we're hearing a lot from anti-choice extremists has to do with the word coercion, that current regulations allowing telemedicine, prescribing, and dispensing somehow empower abusers, as opposed to empowering, say, the hundreds of thousands of women who seek out care that way every year. | ||
| So, Dr. Verma, which is the problem in this scenario? | ||
| Is it the availability of a safe and effective drug for abortion care, or is it people who abuse or coerce women? | ||
| Thank you for that question. | ||
| I oppose reproductive coercion and abuse in any form. | ||
| Any type of reproductive coercion is wrong and is something I've spent a lot of my career fighting against. | ||
| I screen my patients. | ||
| I find real solutions to support them. | ||
| We know that abortion care and telehealth care actually helps protect people. | ||
| Having all of their options helps protect people. | ||
| We've seen in the data that for people that are in abusive relationships that are denied needed abortions, they're more likely to stay in those abusive relationships and put themselves and their families and children at risk. | ||
| What we need here is real solutions to support people in these relationships and people that are being coerced. | ||
| Restricting care further is not a real solution. | ||
| It is a distraction. | ||
| Thank you for that response. | ||
| And I just have to say I'm really tired of Republicans pretending they care about protecting women when all they mean is taking away women's ability to make decisions about their own bodies. | ||
| If they really cared about protecting women, they'd care about the fact that this administration refused to release the Epstein files without an act of Congress, or they wouldn't cut grants for crime victim services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. | ||
| They'd actually care about the fact that this administration has elevated people who shield alleged sex traffickers like Andrew Trait. | ||
| And they certainly wouldn't be trying to force rape victims to stay pregnant no matter what. | ||
| So coercion is a matter of discussion here. | ||
| I have a question for you, Dr. Wovener. | ||
| Anti-abortion groups have shown time and again they're going to try anything to rip away access to medication abortion, including actually in recent years, pushing this absurd lie that mifopristone is somehow, quote, poisoning our water supply. | ||
| They absurdly claim that when people self-manage abortions at home, they're somehow contaminating the environment. | ||
| This is crazy. | ||
| The head of policy for the anti-abortion group Students for Life told Politico last year, and I'm going to quote, people need to understand they are likely drinking other people's abortions. | ||
| Dr. Woveners, do you agree that that's the case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, thank you for the question, Senator Murray, although I do take exception with the way you're characterizing proliferate groups. | |
| But if I can finish, I don't really feel qualified to speak on this issue because I do think that there are other products that are disposed of in wastewater. | ||
| Miscarriages are. | ||
| Menstrual hygiene products are. | ||
| I do think that it is highly problematic that a woman who receives an abortion drug goes back and delivers her baby in the toilet, in her dorm room, on the floor of the shower, wherever it is. | ||
| I'm almost absolutely. | ||
| Let me just tell you, that is insane. | ||
| That comment is insane. | ||
| We all know that the push to use environmental laws to rip away mifopristone is not about the environment. | ||
| The head of policy for Students for Life literally described it as, quote, using the devil's own tools against them. | ||
| People need to understand that right now, anti-abortion groups are pushing invasive and dehumanizing laws to block women in states where abortion is legal from getting the care in the privacy of their own home. | ||
| Republicans need to stop this, and I am just appalled that this is where they are going. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator Banks. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, for holding this hearing. | ||
| I think it's really important. | ||
| The Biden administration made the reckless decision to allow online pharmacies to prescribe dangerous chemical abortion drugs and to let male-order pharmacies ship them directly to women without a real consultation with a doctor. | ||
| However, Mr. Chairman, I'm disappointed that the FDA, under Dr. McCary's leadership, hasn't moved faster to restore the in-person dispensing requirement and strengthen the REMS program for mifopristone. | ||
| I hope the rumors are false, some of them are in print, that the agency is intentionally slowwalking its study on mifopristone's health risk. | ||
| I really hope that that's not the case. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I was hoping that Dr. McCary would be here today so that we could ask him some of these questions directly and clear up those rumors. | ||
| This is about protecting women from dangerous and even life-threatening drugs and their side effects. | ||
| And Mr. Chairman, I hope that Dr. McCary and the FDA will address this important issue without further delay. | ||
| With that, I'll begin my questions. | ||
| Dr. Wibbenhorst, the 2016 Obama FDA stopped requiring reporting of non-fatal complications from abortion drugs like mifopristone. | ||
| Then in 2023, the Biden administration weakened the RIMS program risk evaluation and mitigation strategies for mifopristone and allowed it to be prescribed online and delivered through the mail. | ||
| Can you tell us really quickly why that combination of decisions are so dangerous? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think those decisions were dangerous because, number one, if we are only focusing on death, we are missing all the other outcomes and we can't be said to have been collecting data that we need. | |
| As I've mentioned, both in the U.S. and internationally, there are studies indicating that mifopristone and mesoprostol used for abortion are associated with significant side effects and risks and harms to women. | ||
| In addition to that, the lack of data on mifopristone and mesoprostal leads us to come to what I think are erroneous conclusions about its safety. | ||
| Mifopristone, the requirement is for prescribers, mifopristone, and drug companies to report, but there's no mandatory requirement for hospitals and medical providers. | ||
|
Black Box Warnings Matter
00:02:11
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|
unidentified
|
There's no mandatory reporting. | |
| So we're really not seeing a huge number of those complications being reported, and this is putting women at harm. | ||
| Doctor, this is the FDA label for mifopristone. | ||
| It's dated January 2023, and that was during the Biden administration, when they started weakening the safeguards, and the label hasn't changed since then. | ||
| Mifopristone has a black box warning, and I'm wondering if you could tell us what does a black box warning mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So a black box warning exists to warn both patients and prescribers of serious and sometimes fatal complications that are associated with the use of a drug. | ||
| For example, chemotherapy drugs typically have a black box warning associated with them. | ||
| This is why the comparison with Viagra and Tylenol is not correct, because Viagra does not have a black box warning. | ||
| Tylenol does not have a black box warning. | ||
| So the label says that doctors need to inform patients about mifopristone's risk. | ||
| It says that doctors need to ensure that women know who to call and what to do if they experience sustained fever, severe abdominal pain, prolonged heavy bleeding, or fainting. | ||
| Doctor, are online pharmacies and telehealth websites doing that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, they're not. | |
| I've actually visited these. | ||
| Of course, I haven't bought anything. | ||
| But I've actually visited these and they do not say anything about the black box warning or the serious side effects. | ||
| So do you think that any drug with a black box warning should be prescribed online? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Never, and it should not be prescribed over the counter either. | |
| Okay. | ||
| The FDA label also says, quote, serious and sometimes fatal infections and bleeding occur very rarely following spontaneous surgical and medical abortions, including following mifopristone use. | ||
| Doctor, based on all of the studies and the data that we have that you've seen, how often is quote very rarely? | ||
|
Millions At Risk
00:03:15
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|
unidentified
|
Well, the studies, one of the studies that I've reviewed recently from one of the Scandinavian countries showed an infection rate of approximately 2 percent. | |
| So if you consider the number of the millions of abortions, I'm sorry, that about 60 percent of abortions are being done, close to a million abortions every year, 2 percent infection rate that is not rare. | ||
| So I can't quantify that any further. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In terms of numbers of women, how many women are impacted? | |
| How the women are impacted? | ||
| How many? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, take a half, 500,000, so 2 percent of 500,000. | |
| Mr. Chairman, that's so significant. | ||
| We're not acting quickly enough. | ||
| And I hope that we do something about this. | ||
| Thank you again for holding this hearing and your leadership with that. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| And there's been two to my colleagues. | ||
| As regarding Commissioner McCowery not being present, we do hope to have the Commissioner before the Committee very soon, and we've been speaking with the FDA to facilitate the discussion of this and other issues. | ||
| As regards Secretary Kennedy, he did promise to come back, and we have requested that he come back and testify. | ||
| That was something that Senator Murray mentioned. | ||
| No, it's from the process. | ||
| And so now, Senator Baldwin. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This hearing is allegedly about protecting women. | ||
| But what we're really talking about here is a Republican effort for a national abortion ban by any means necessary. | ||
| Frankly, if my Republican colleagues truly cared about protecting women, they would ensure that women had the right to make decisions about their own bodies and access to comprehensive and affordable health care. | ||
| We're currently facing an ongoing health care crisis in this country. | ||
| President Trump and Congressional Republicans' big ugly bill will result in 15 million Americans losing their health insurance and cause 200 planned parenthood clinics to close, cutting off access to cancer screenings and reproductive health care. | ||
| The 24 million Americans who rely on the Affordable Care Act marketplace are facing drastically increased costs, fueled by the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits. | ||
| And numbers released yesterday by CMS show that the Affordable Care Act enrollment is declining as a result. | ||
| Dr. Verma, you touched on this in your testimony, but how do these Republican actions to limit women's access to health care generally and reproductive health care specifically, how does that affect the patients that you see? | ||
|
Mifit Pristone Stories
00:15:10
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| Thank you for that question. | ||
| It dramatically affects the patients that I see. | ||
| In Georgia, we have a huge number of maternity care deserts, about 40% of our counties, and many of those patients can't get easy access to their prenatal care, their cancer screenings. | ||
| I often see women who come in to deliver their babies who have not been able to get any prenatal care. | ||
| And these cuts are making that much worse. | ||
| And so we are creating a world where women can't get access to the abortion care they need. | ||
| They also, when they choose to parent, cannot safely continue their pregnancies and deliver because they can't get the health care that they need. | ||
| We've heard a lot today of things that are not based in evidence. | ||
| Here are the facts. | ||
| Mifipristone has been FDA approved for nearly 25 years. | ||
| More than 100 peer-reviewed, robust clinical studies have confirmed its safety. | ||
| 99% of patients who took the abortion pill had no complications. | ||
| My Republican colleagues are citing studies that simply don't pass muster. | ||
| These studies may not be peer-reviewed or even published in medical journals. | ||
| So, Dr. Verma, could you share the difference between the over 100 studies affirming the safety of Mifipristone and the so-called studies that my Republican colleagues have chosen to highlight at this hearing? | ||
| Thank you for that question. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Just as you mentioned, we have over 100 high-quality peer-reviewed studies showing Mifipristone's safety and effectiveness. | ||
| Less than 10, two have been retracted to suggest that Miffipristone is not safe. | ||
| One that is commonly cited and that we've heard about today, even the CEO of the Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, admitted the paper is not a study in the traditional sense and is not proof of anything. | ||
| It was a policy paper that was self-published that mislabeled serious adverse events. | ||
| It included routine care as serious adverse events and falsely really falsely made claims about everything it was saying. | ||
| And so, yes, the science on this is more than settled, which really does beg the question of what are we doing here today, right? | ||
| The science is settled. | ||
| I think any person of science can compare these over 100 studies to the less than 10 to have been retracted, all of which are deeply flawed if you look at them. | ||
| As a person of science, I think any person can say the science is settled. | ||
| And so, again, what are we doing here today? | ||
| And it may be that we are here today because people in this room feel uncomfortable with abortion. | ||
| And that's okay, and we can talk about that and we can have an honest conversation about that and complexity and the reasons that my patients need abortion care. | ||
| But we should not pretend that this is an issue of the science. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I would offer that Dr. Marshall, as a practicing OB, knows something about science, and he listed some side effects. | ||
| John Houstead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Admittedly, in preparation for today's hearing, I had a lot of reflection about my start in life. | ||
| I started out in foster care and was adopted and know that my birth mother was under a lot of pressure to have an abortion. | ||
| And thankfully for me, she didn't. | ||
| I know that my biological father had pressured her to do so, and she chose an adoption. | ||
| So I fast forward and think about the world we live in today with drugs like Mifopristone and wonder, if it had existed then, would the outcome for me have been different? | ||
| I would like to think that my birth mother would have still chosen to have an adoption, but I've seen some of the horrors of men who are trying to use the drug to end pregnancies against the will of the woman that they give the drug to. | ||
| And I'm going to go through a couple of examples to prove that this is a real-life situation. | ||
| Example one, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas, Christopher Cooper Ryder murdered his next-door neighbor's unborn child, who he fathered in 2025. | ||
| Cooper Ryder obtained Mifpristone via online pharmacy and gave her these drugs without her knowledge by lacing it in her hot chocolate. | ||
| Example two from my own state of Ohio. | ||
| According to the Ohio State Medical Board, Hassan James Abbas offered to obtain Mifpristone and Mr. Prostall via an out-of-state telemedicine provider by providing telemedicine by providing the telemedicine platform the name of his estranged wife. | ||
| Mr. Abbas allegedly obtained the prescription of Mifpristone with the intent to secretly terminate the pregnancy of a woman with whom he had engaged in a sexual relationship. | ||
| Public reporting alleges that Mr. Abbas spiked the beverage with the abortion drug without the woman's knowledge, but she didn't consume the beverage and then later Mr. Abbas waited until she was asleep, held the woman down and forced her to consume the drug. | ||
| That's not the choice of a woman. | ||
| This is not the choice of a woman controlling her own body. | ||
| This is how an easily obtained drug that can terminate the life of an unborn child can be used to end that life without an individual's woman consenting to it. | ||
| And so I just asked the question, I'll start with you, Attorney General Murrell. | ||
| How would, like, how do we stop this? | ||
| But it seems to me that just requiring an in-person visit before dispensing the drug would stop this. | ||
| And I want your thought on that. | ||
| Thank you, Senator, and thank you for telling your story. | ||
| I mean, it's stories like yours that have caused the overwhelming bipartisan decision of our state legislature to protect life both for the born and unborn, for born and unborn children. | ||
| And that is an overwhelming policy decision of our legislature that is supported by the overwhelming majority of people in our state. | ||
| So I appreciate you sharing your story. | ||
| We absolutely believe that putting the in-person dispensing requirement back in place would substantially protect women. | ||
| And we do have additional evidence, similar stories like yours. | ||
| A state senator's sister testified in our legislature about her estranged husband poisoning her food to get rid of a pregnancy that he did not want. | ||
| And fortunately, her baby was born. | ||
| She suffers some complications from that assault on her. | ||
| But, you know, this is why Louisiana put those drugs on the state-controlled substances list so that we can track who's prescribing them and make sure that they are being, there's some accountability for the use of these medications. | ||
| The in-person requirement provides that accountability and still does not interfere with those states who wish to adopt a different policy provision. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I want to be able to get to the other, just quickly, how do we stop stuff? | |
| How do we stop this from happening? | ||
| We prosecute those people. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think that we reinstate the REMs or strengthen the REMs and we enforce the Comstock Act. | |
| I think that those are two of the most effective things in order to stop telemedicine abortion. | ||
| Dr. Verma, quickly. | ||
| And thank you for sharing your story. | ||
| I do just want to assure you that I talk to all my patients about adoption and continuing pregnancy and abortion. | ||
| I think we stop this by making sure that people can get the care they need in their communities and are able to get support when they need it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Senator King. | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry. | ||
| Senator Hassan. | ||
| I'm sorry, I can't even read it. | ||
| It's up here and I skipped it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry. | |
| Thank you, Senator Kaine. | ||
| That is very kind. | ||
| True. | ||
| Welcome to our witnesses, and thank you for being here. | ||
| You know, I have to say, Mr. Chair, this hearing has just struck me as gaslighting at the highest level. | ||
| I have some questions for Dr. Verma. | ||
| I'm going to get to them in just a second, but let me be clear. | ||
| There is bipartisan work that we have all done together to combat sex trafficking. | ||
| Those signs you saw in Southwest Airlines plane, that's because we passed a law that said they have to go up in airports and on planes. | ||
| That was bipartisan work we all did. | ||
| The truth of the matter is that women have been coerced before Mifit Pristone, and they've been coerced since Mifit Pristone. | ||
| The murder rate, the assault rate on pregnant women by their partners to end a pregnancy, has been a long-standing part of human history. | ||
| So to blame it on Mifit Pristone misses the point. | ||
| To say that women shouldn't be able to get this medication through the mail misses the point that abortion bans have created maternal health and reproductive health deserts in this country so that when you say a woman should go consult with a physician, | ||
| there are women who would have to travel hours in this country, miss work, find a babysitter if they have a car to begin with in order to do that because of policies that have banned abortion and have cut Medicaid in particular. | ||
| That's what we are facing. | ||
| There is bipartisan concern that women be able to access health care. | ||
| There is a bipartisan understanding that reproductive care, to Dr. Wehrmer's point, is complex. | ||
| When I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks, it was painful and it was hard and it was emotional and Mifit Pristone had nothing to do with it and I didn't use Mifipristone. | ||
| I had to have a DNC. | ||
| So the gaslighting here is extraordinary. | ||
| So let's talk about the real issues. | ||
| Dr. Verma, Planned Parenthood provides life-saving health care for millions of women. | ||
| So I recently heard from a constituent, Tricia, in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, who went to Planned Parenthood to get affordable, basic health care after she left the military. | ||
| Tricia shared that without Planned Parenthood's sliding fee scale based on income, she wouldn't have been able to see an OPGYN at all. | ||
| During one of her appointments at Planned Parenthood, Tricia was tested and treated for a reproductive health condition that, if left untreated, could have led her to have serious health complications down the road. | ||
| Now, President Trump and Congressional Republicans stripped Planned Parenthood of critical funding last year, taking life-saving preventive care and screenings away from women like Tricia. | ||
| Dr. Verma, what long-term health impacts could women like Tricia face as a result of President Trump defunding Planned Parenthood? | ||
| Thank you for that question and for sharing your story. | ||
| I see patients like this all the time, where Planned Parenthood plays a critical role in their health care access for things like cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection screenings, birth control, in addition to abortion care and miscarriage management. | ||
| And not having that access point will have devastating effects on people's ability to detect signs of cervical cancer or pre-cancer early, to have sexually transmitted infections treated, to have a lot of the preventive care that people need to stay healthy. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I've heard from granite staters who took mifipristone after the loss of a much-wanted pregnancy. | ||
| So, Dr. Verma, I understand that there are serious health risks for women if they have a miscarriage that goes untreated. | ||
| When a state restricts access to mifipristone, what are the health impacts for women experiencing miscarriage? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Thank you for that question. | ||
| We know based on the data that mifipristone combined with mesoprostal for women that want medication management of their miscarriage is the ideal option. | ||
| And already, because of restrictions on mifipristone, many women can't get that standard of care treatment that speeds up the process, reduces pain, and decreases their need to have to have a procedure if that's something that they don't want. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Last question: Millions of women live in maternal care deserts where the nearest OBGYN is sometimes hours away, as I referenced in my initial comments. | ||
| Women who don't have access to a specialist can access safe abortion by getting mifipristone and follow-up care through telehealth. | ||
| Dr. Verma, how has telehealth changed access to safe reproductive care in rural areas? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It has made it more accessible. | ||
| And again, like I emphasized earlier, there is a process for telehealth. | ||
| There are regulations. | ||
| There are strict screenings that happen. | ||
| And what is really the issue here is when people need additional care, they can't get it in their communities without fear of being criminalized. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Senator Moody. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman Cassidy, for convening this important hearing. | ||
|
Men Pregnant: The Hidden Crisis
00:06:00
|
||
| As one of only a few mothers of school-aged children in the Senate, the safety and well-being of women and children is very important to me. | ||
| I was disheartened to hear, after the brave story of my colleague sharing that he was indeed adopted and that his birth mother was pressured to get an abortion and she bravely refused and carried him to term and gave him up for adoption. | ||
| That was referred to as gaslighting. | ||
| It's very hard for me also to sit here as someone who has been in the legal world and seen the horrific stories that have come to light about coercive abortions. | ||
| That that is gaslighting. | ||
| I would ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to refrain from using that language because there have been very serious incidents where women and their children were harmed. | ||
| And that is not guys lighting, that is fact. | ||
| And I'm also disheartened that we heard, as we bring up the instance of men or even some women crushing up these abortion drugs and giving them to people surreptitiously in order to end a life, that we should tolerate this new trend In crime, in murder, because, as one of my Democratic colleagues just put it after referring to these instances as gaslighting, because, | ||
| and I'm quoting my Democratic colleague, coercion of abortions is a long-standing part of human history. | ||
| That is unacceptable. | ||
| And in fact, when I was Attorney General in Florida just a year or so ago, a woman in Florida got an abortion drug from out of state as part of a plot to kill her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend's child in the womb. | ||
| I mean, this stuff isn't made up. | ||
| When I was a judge in Florida, back before I was the Attorney General in my hometown, a guy got an abortion drug, put a different label on the bottle, labeled it as an antibiotic, and gave it to his former girlfriend and said, You need to take this. | ||
| And she did. | ||
| And she had to testify at trial with a picture of a sonogram of that child. | ||
| This is not gaslighting, this is happening. | ||
| And as states are trying after Dobbs to come up with, as a people, what their laws are going to be, we here in Washington have to make sure that those laws that they come up with to prevent this kind of thing, to protect their people are not circumvented. | ||
| Ms. Verma, can men get pregnant? | ||
| Dr. Burba. | ||
| I just want to make sure we're going to be aware of that. | ||
| Dr. Burma, can men get pregnant as a doctor? | ||
| Give me your opinion. | ||
| As a doctor, can men get pregnant? | ||
| I mean, I'll move on to the next one. | ||
| Doctor, can men get pregnant? | ||
| No. | ||
| I know you're a lawyer, an AG, like I was an AG. | ||
| Can men get pregnant? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Is there any reason why men should get their hands on the abortion drug? | ||
| None. | ||
| And are they getting their hands on an abortion drugs? | ||
| They are. | ||
| And are they getting them through the mail across state lines? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are. | |
| Even when it is illegal and the people have decided within states that they want to prevent that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are. | |
| And I would just add that that is because there is a concerted effort to prevent any accountability and any human contact. | ||
| So they go to anybody who asks for them. | ||
| They do not identify now in many states the prescriber, the pharmacy, or the recipient. | ||
| And so this is very dangerous. | ||
| It is by design created that way in order to circumvent Dobbs. | ||
| Is it easy for men to get abortion drugs across state lines? | ||
| Extraordinarily. | ||
| In fact, I had staff members who said, My name is Michael. | ||
| How do I get abortion drugs? | ||
| Would it surprise you to know that there are all kinds of organizations ready to satisfy that whim of a man to get abortion drugs? | ||
| Sadly, it does not surprise me. | ||
| And not just in your, I know from working with you as fellow attorneys general, I know that you value life and you want to protect life and you're doing everything you can to do that. | ||
| But in your role as a prosecutor that is protecting people and is meant to, and it is your job to enforce the people's laws to protect people. | ||
| Are men getting these drugs and using them to surreptitiously in life in their girlfriends, wives, lovers, et cetera? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are. | |
| Men and in some times, parents and women. | ||
| And in two of the cases that we are, in fact, prosecuting, SHIELD laws are blocking our ability to do that. | ||
| And I cannot understand why any governor would refuse our extradition papers so that we can prosecute someone who coerced their child to have an abortion. | ||
| Chairman Cassidy, I see my time has expired. | ||
| Appreciate you for facing this issue head on. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Rudy. | ||
| And now, Senator Kim. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Thank you to the three of you for showing up here. | ||
| Dr. Verma, I'd like to start with you. | ||
| There's a phrase that's been that you mentioned, and some of my colleagues have that I'd like to just kind of dive in deeper, which is about these maternal care deserts. | ||
| So, if you can just explain to us, explain to the American people the challenge that we're facing with maternal care deserts. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Thank you for that question. | ||