The Daily Signal - ‘Why Is It Taking So Long’? Senate Health Chair Urges Immediate FDA Action on Abortion Pill

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

The Food and Drug Administration should “immediately” restore in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion pill, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told The Daily Signal. The senator cited safety concerns in pressing the administration to act. “You don’t have to have a review to know that if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, she’s gonna have a problem,” Cassidy said. “You don’t have to have a review to know that there’s documented cases of people coerced into taking this.” Under President Joe Biden in April 2021, the administration stopped requiring that abortion drugs be dispensed to women in person. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, of which Cassidy is the chair, is holding a hearing Wednesday on protecting women from abortion drugs. Cassidy hopes the hearing will “rehumanize” the issue by demonstrating how the pill harms both women and unborn children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senator Cassidy, the HELP Committee, which you're the chair of, has a hearing here tomorrow in this very room on protecting women from abortion drugs. In April of 2021, the Biden administration's Food and Drug Administration stopped requiring that the abortion drug be dispensed to women in person. Now, what message do you hope that this hearing tomorrow will express to the Trump FDA about the abortion bill? We need to rehumanize the issue. During the COVID pandemic, the idea was, at least the rationale was, that a doctor or patient visit would not be needed because of the threat of exposing someone to COVID. That's past. And the people who advocate this relaxed policy try and minimize what's going on. And the potential negative impact of these pills.

Well, what's going on? One, a child is losing its life. That's number one. But let's just take it from the perspective of the mother. not having an inpatient visit, which right now the Biden administration says you don't have to, that not having an inpatient visit means that it's possible that the woman has an ectopic pregnancy if she takes the pill that that can threaten her life when her tube ruptures. It's possible that she's gone too many weeks past the time when she should take the pill

because it's only, I think it's 11 weeks or something like that. She could be past that date. and it's possible she's being coerced into taking it. Tomorrow, the Louisiana Attorney General will testify about two cases in which the woman did not want to take the pill, but somebody who had emotional control over her, forced her to take the pill, watched her take it,

and made sure she swallowed it, and then she aborted. And she lives with that regret. Now, I just got off of an airplane, and I noticed in the bathroom, there's a sign that says, if you are being trafficked, call this number, tell a flight attendant. That young woman who's being trafficked, there's a concern for her. What if the pimp has the woman who's now pregnant because he's pimped her,

forcing her to take the pill? Don't we care about that too? That inpatient visit, it allows the physician to speak to the patient to make sure, to make sure that she understands the decision, she's not being coerced. We should care about that. When it comes to those cases where a woman is coerced and taking the abortion pill or it's even slipped into her drink and she doesn't even know she's taking it, what can Congress or even the Trump administration do to prevent that type of thing from happening?

Well, again, I think that the in-person visit is important. Because if it's an in-person visit, you'll say, do you understand what you're doing? Do you do this reasonably? And you're going to be by yourself, with the patient, the nurse will be there, but no one else if the doctor so kind of requests that and can find out if she really knows what's going on. If she says, I want this baby. I want this baby, but my boyfriend is making me take that.

Or, worst case, I'm being trafficked and I'm being held against my will. That's what that inpatient comes. Now by the way, to slip it into the drink implied that you've been able to get the pill without having an in-person visit with the doctor. So why don't we require that in-person visit, and that way no one's going to be slipping it into the drink, and no one's going to be forcing it down your throat? Because ideally the doctor or the nurse would be able to tell that, wait a second, you're being coerced, and we need to call the police. You're one of the leading members of Congress who has been calling FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCarray to do a thorough safety

review on the abortion pill. I asked me about the progress of this review a few weeks ago, and he said that there is both an ongoing study and a robust study, which is in the data acquisition phase currently. Are you content with the current progress of that abortion-field safety? No, no. It seems like if they have a high priority to get something done, the data is already there. Sometimes you wonder where the data came from. And so why is it taking so long to set up the mechanism by which to acquire the data? This is not something that is hard to do. It's just something that needs to be done. I'd like to see it done now. Would ask by the daily signal, Dr. McCurry was unable to provide a time frame for this abortion

pill review or to speculate about the results. What time frame do you think would be appropriate? Like yesterday. You can't speculate on the results because that's the whole point of a review. But get it done quickly because it was promised during confirmation hearings that it would be done. And there's an expectation that it will be. It was reported that that abortion fell safety review was being slow-locked. Do you believe that that is happening? You know, I discipline myself. not to kind of, it's rumored, so therefore it must be true.

So I'm just not going to comment on that, except it seems like it's taken a long time. The Ethics and Public Policy Center found that 11%, about 11% of women who take the abortion pill experience adverse effects when they don't see a doctor first. Do you believe, as a doctor from your medical background, that it's safe for a woman to take this sort of pill without seeing a doctor prior? Well, of course, there's going to be women who have no problems. But we don't practice medicine for those that are not going to have a problem. We practice medicine to prevent those who might have a problem from having a problem.

So I guess my focus would be we know that having an in-person visit, for the reasons I just described, do you have an actopic pregnancy? Are you still within the allowable weeks by which you can take this? And are you being coerced? Are you doing this under your own free will? Those are three things that can be screened for, diagnosed if you will. those are important things to do. Do you think the FDA should wait until the safety review is done

to restore those in-person dispensing requirements, or should they do it immediately? Do it immediately. Because you don't have to have a review to know that if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, she's going to have a problem. You don't have to have a review to know that there's documented cases of people coerced into taking this.

Maybe you say, well, if the review shows that that's one out of 10 million, that maybe you'd change your mind then. But the burden of proof is to show that it's not necessary, not to show that it is necessary. In October, the FDA approved a new generic abortion pill. They said the FDA had limited discretion when it comes to generic drugs approving those. Given what you said about the dangers of the abortion pill, do you think the FDA should have done that? I know you wrote a letter to that effect. What are your thoughts on that?

You know, the Biden administration did not feel compelled to approve it, but this administration did. That just kind of struck me. Wait a second. It just sat for four years under Biden. and all of a sudden we're going to rush it through. I still don't have a good answer for that. Why did Commissioner McCarrie have to do with the Biden administration sat on for four years? I don't have an answer for that, and I was not given an adequate answer. You wrote a letter pressing the FDA about this.

Have you heard in response from them? The response, yes, I received a response, but not one that I thought answered my questions. There are also concerns we've talked about when people are being coerced into taking the abortion pill. There are also cases where people in red states, where abortion is illegal are ordering abortion pills from states where it is legal and taking them in red states.

How can authorities prevent that type of thing from happening of these abortion drugs are legally crossing state lines? Well, it may be difficult if the federal government continues to look after interstate commerce. But one thing is concerning, is I've seen a case in Louisiana where the doctor in California was coaching the woman

about how to avoid it being detected that he had given her an abortion bill. Now, by the way, in our state, if the woman takes the pill, she's not prosecuted. That's not an issue. She's okay. But the physician actively coaching, okay, this is what you do in order to be detected, if you will, to protect the doctor prescribing. That's wrong. And if I knowingly break a law in another state, I am guilty in that other state. If I'm making phone calls stealing people by fraud in the state of, if I'm in Louisiana stealing money from others by fraud in Montana, Montana can prosecute me.

So if you are breaking Louisiana law by shipping these, that seems wrong to me too. What do you hope the main takeaway that people watching this hearing tomorrow will be? This is a really human story. It's not just taking a pill like a Tylenol and no consequences. Of course, we know there's a consequence for the unborn child who is now aborted. But there's a real potential consequence for the woman who's carrying that child. Humanize that. Understand that there's things we can do as a society that makes it more likely that she's got autonomy,

that she's making decisions of our own free will, and that the health risk associated with taking the medicine for the mother are minimized. The abortion bill issue we've been discussing is top issue for the pro-life movement right now. Another top issue is making sure that the Hyde Amendment is in the health care deal. Last week, the president told Republicans to be flexible on Hyde, and now that the House has passed an extension of these Obamacare subsidies, do you feel confident Senate Republicans will succeed in passing a health care deal that doesn't include Hyde? From my perspective, federal dollars should not be used to pay for abortion, period. And so how you accomplish that is what's at issue.

But those federal dollars should not be used. And the president's going to be key to this. There's an old baseball player called Reggie Jackson, and he described himself as the straw that stirred the drink, which is to say the one that makes things happen. The president is the straw that serves a drink. He's the one that makes things happen. And if we find a solution, he'll be key to that solution.

It's very interesting. Would you say this is an area where Republicans should be willing to compromise or should not be willing to compromise? We should not. Mike Johnson put it well. You don't compromise on life. And so I think we just have to continue to stand for life. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time today.

We appreciate it. Thank you, Elizabeth.