Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a Republican, sharply criticized the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a new generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone on Thursday night, underscoring intensifying conservative frustration with the Biden-era agency’s approach to abortion.
“I fully support President Trump’s Pro-Life, Pro-Family agenda, but the FDA approving one more tool to kill babies is a betrayal,” Cassidy wrote on the social platform X. He accused federal officials of misleading lawmakers during their confirmation process, adding, “This is not what Commissioner Makary and Secretary Kennedy indicated they would do in their confirmation hearings.” Cassidy was referring to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The FDA confirmed that Evita Solutions, the pharmaceutical company behind the newly approved mifepristone pills, had met the technical standards required for approval. But the announcement quickly drew fire from Republican lawmakers, who argued that the agency had rushed to expand abortion access while ignoring safety concerns.
Kennedy and Makary themselves acknowledged only last week that “recent studies raising concerns about the safety of mifepristone as currently administered” might warrant revisions to the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy requirements — the very safeguards meant to govern the use of the drug.
The decision has fueled anger among conservatives who say the Biden administration is undermining public trust in regulatory agencies. Representative Mark Harris, Republican of North Carolina, vowed on Friday that he and other lawmakers would seek “accountability” from the FDA for its approval “of a lethal abortion drug.”
Representative Josh Brecheen, Republican of Oklahoma, echoed that sentiment in a post on X, writing that “the FDA’s recent approval of the generic version of mifepristone is completely unacceptable.” He went on to argue that the agency’s justification exposed a deeper contradiction in the administration’s rhetoric. “Actually, it’s science,” Brecheen wrote. “The generic version is as safe and effective as brand products. It is, in fact, a rare win for science — in this administration.”
Mifepristone, first approved by the FDA in 2000, is taken with another drug, misoprostol, to induce chemical abortions. The two-drug regimen now accounts for roughly two-thirds of abortions performed in the United States.
For conservatives, the approval of a generic form represents not a neutral expansion of consumer choice but a deliberate policy step aimed at increasing abortion access nationwide.
Critics argue that the FDA has strayed far from its core mission of ensuring safety and protecting public health, bending instead to political demands from an administration eager to entrench abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision returning the issue to the states.
To them, the agency’s decision is another example of a bureaucracy advancing social policy through regulation, bypassing democratic debate.
Cassidy’s charge that the FDA and HHS leadership misled senators at their confirmation hearings reflects a broader conservative worry: that agencies are operating outside the promises made to lawmakers and to the public.
With Republicans already promising investigations, the latest move is certain to sharpen the political clash over abortion — and over the federal bureaucracy itself.
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