{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415134", "LifeSiteNews article on Smith-Harshbarger letter to Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner Makary'170+ Republican members of Congress urge Trump admin to immediately ban mailing abortion pills'", "2025-11-26", "2025", "2025-11", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "By Calvin Freiburger\n\nPublished Wednesday, November 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM EST\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) \u2014 More than 170 congressional Republicans have signed a new letter calling on the Trump administration to immediately restore the requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in-person and pick up the pace of its promised review of the data on the drugs\u2019 dangers.\n\nUnder the Biden administration, health officials eliminated the requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person, and the Biden Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel declared that a provision of the 1873 Comstock Act making it illegal for the United States Postal Service to deliver any \u201carticle, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion,\u201d did not mean what it said, and abortion pills could be freely mailed, delivered, and received \u201cwhere the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully,\u201d with unlawful intent essentially declared unknowable.\n\nThe U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to that decision on standing grounds, and the Trump campaign declared that President Donald Trump would not restore Comstock if elected. After returning to office, Trump took a number of pro-life actions that caused pro-lifers to relax, primarily in the area of taxpayer funding. Pro-lifers hoped that a strengthening of his abortion pill position would eventually follow, bolstered by promises from U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (another formerly pro-abortion figure who \u201cmoderated\u201d during his own presidential bid) promised in May a \u201ccomplete review\u201d of the medical risks of abortion pills, though no conclusions or timetable have yet been announced.\n\nThe November 20 letter, led by Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Diana Harshbarger, (R-TN) and addressed to Kennedy and U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary, asks that the \u201cdeleterious and grossly underreported effects on women of the drug mifepristone be aggressively investigated and decisive action taken to protect women from harm\u201d and urges \u201cimmediate action be taken to, at a minimum, reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone.\u201d\n\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders have added their names to the letter.\n\nIt highlights an April analysis by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), which concluded that almost 11 percent of women suffer sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other major conditions after taking mifepristone, according to insurance data, plus similar findings by the Restoration of America Foundation, as part of a \u201cgrowing body of evidence indicating that the health risks associated with mifepristone abortions are severe, widespread, and significantly underreported.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe dangerous Biden mail-order scheme was designed to give abortion activists license to mail drugs everywhere, even into states like [abortion coercion victim Rosalie] Markezich\u2019s home state of Louisiana that have pro-life protections for pregnant mothers and their unborn babies,\u201d the letter says. \u201cThese drugs are sent across state lines with no physician oversight, and without appropriate screening to ensure that bad actors are not secretly poisoning women without their knowledge or forcing women to take abortion drugs against their will\u2014a clear indication that radical pro-abortion activists care more about protecting abortion access than about upholding women\u2019s health and safety.\u201d\n\nUltimately, it notes, almost two-thirds of all U.S. abortions are now done via drugs.\n\n\u201cUnder your leadership, HHS and FDA can reverse this wrong,\u201d the letter concludes. \u201cWe urge you to immediately reinstate the REMS requiring in-person dispensing of mifepristone and to expedite the promised review by the FDA into the dangers of abortion drugs.\u201d\n\nAbortion pills have become arguably the most important part of the abortion lobby\u2019s business, and the ability to mail them across state lines to be taken in complete privacy is nearly impossible for pro-life states to prevent, effectively undermining Trump\u2019s own stated desire for every state to decide abortion policy for itself.\n\nIn November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business \u201csurged\u201d with 64 percent of new facilities built specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, STAT says mifepristone \u201caccounts for roughly half of all abortions in the U.S.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415134"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9446302428841591, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}