Republican United States Senator from Ohio Jon Husted (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images.)
During a recent U.S. Senate committee hearing, Ohio Republican Senator Jon Husted spoke out against the abortion pill, a target of the Trump administration, as well as legislation in the Ohio Statehouse.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on “Protecting Women from Unsafe Abortion Drugs” during which Attorney General of Louisiana and other speakers advocated for further regulation and FDA review of the abortion pill mifepristone.
It was published after the drug was re-evaluated at the request of US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. already in September 2025.
The committee chairman, Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, specifically said the hearing was called to hear testimony about “dangerous chemicals, abortion drugs” despite the fact that decades of research as certain testimonies given at the same hearing showed mifepristone considered medically safe and sound and stern complications considered scarce.
“Scientifically and morally, there is no difference in the value of a child whether it is in the mother’s arms or in the mother’s womb,” Cassidy said during the hearing.
Husted serves on the committee and participated in the hearing on mifepristone.
He gave two examples of men being accused of forcing women to have medical abortions without their knowledge Or against their will as an argument against the drug. He said requiring an in-person visit before dispensing the drug “would prevent this.”
Husted also alluded to his own adoption story, in which he stated that his mother could have chosen an abortion.
“Luckily for me, that didn’t happen,” Husted said.
Obstetrician/gynecologist and reproductive health physician expert Dr. Nisha Verma pointed to more than 100 “high-quality, peer-reviewed studies” that prove mifepristone is safe and sound and effective, outweighing the less than 10 studies that suggest the drug is unsafe.
Verma told the committee that one of the studies often cited by anti-abortion Republicans was a “strategy document that was self-published,” Verma told the committee, and included “routine care” as stern adverse events.
She said the science “is more than conclusive” about the safety of the abortion method, “which really begs the question of what are we doing here today.”
“Maybe it’s the case that we’re here today because people in this room feel uncomfortable about abortion, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and we can talk about it,” Verma said. “But we shouldn’t pretend this is a matter of science.”
The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists has stated that the risk of complications or death from an abortion procedure “is less than the same risk from common procedures such as wisdom teeth removal, colonoscopy for cancer, and plastic surgery.”
Ohio advocates further insisted on the safety of the treatment and said in-person visit requirements would create a health care affordability problem.
“Telehealth and mail-in delivery options for medication abortion are especially important for patients living in rural areas, patients with child care or other caregiving responsibilities, and patients with transportation issues,” said Erica Wilson-Domer, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio.
Based on Husted’s examples of men forcing mifepristone on unknowing or reluctant women, Wilson-Domer concluded that “these are criminal acts and not the result of the availability of the drug.”
“The isolated anecdotes on which Senator Husted bases his argument should not be used to justify restricting this extremely safe and effective drug,” Wilson-Domer said in a statement.
The FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000 and has since updated its regulations for the drug to allow the employ of telemedicine methods.
What remains unchanged with the drug is: Risk assessment and mitigation strategyFDA’s drug safety program, which is used for several drugs to verify that a drug’s distributors are properly authorized to do so and “ensure that the drug’s benefits outweigh its risks,” according to the FDA’s website about the programs.
Ohio General Assembly considers his own moves related to medical abortion, with Republican-led legislation vigorous in committees.
This applies to accounts such as Ohio House Bill 324a general drug regulation bill that would require in-person prescriptions and ban telehealth options for drugs that cause stern side effects occurring in more than 5% of patients.
Mifepristone came up during hearings on the bill as abortion advocates argued that unpeer-reviewed studies like the one mentioned during the U.S. Senate hearing could be reported to the Ohio Department of Health as a reason to classify the abortion drug as an in-person drug.
Anti-abortion groups argued that the bill would provide “necessary protections” for mifepristone.
Other bills still pending include Ohio House Bill 370, which would reinstate the concept of “fetal personhood” to effectively ban abortion at the point of conception; and Ohio House Bill 347, which would force patients to wait 24 hours before having an abortion, potentially restoring into law a requirement stayed by an Ohio court.
Ohio Senate bill 309 would require doctors who prescribe mifepristone to tell patients that they can sue the doctor, health care facilities and others if they have complications related to the drugs.
Doctors and abortion rights advocates say the law not only replicates informed consent requirements already included in their medical training, but could create a lack of trust between doctors and patients.
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