We are fewer than 400 signatures from 25,000 for the petition! Please ask folks you know it sign it because it is helping get heard on Capital Hill.

We have a letter being hand delivered to Senators Gillibrand, Rosen and Warren this week and a host of U.S. Reps as well. If you have a personal relationship with a member of Congress and want to personally deliver a copy of the letter to them, please let me know.

Here is the body of is:

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s disastrous opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, we write to request your help on an issue of critical importance toward expanding the number of women across the country who can access abortion medication.

More than 20 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the abortion medication mifepristone as safe for use in the first trimester of pregnancy. And, yet, the FDA placed the medication in the most restricted category for drugs called REMS, or risk, evaluation, and mitigation strategy. REMS is a category used only for the most dangerous drugs in the U.S., which includes lethal and addictive drugs like fentanyl and thalidomide. As a result of the REMs restrictions, clinicians must be certified by the manufacturer before they are able to prescribe the medication, thus making it much harder for women to access the medication.

Over twenty years of medical research exists indicating that the medication is 98% effective and much safer for women than having a surgical abortion. Five years ago, a team of expert doctors wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine that the FDA’s restrictions on mifepristone “no longer make[] clinical sense” and should be “expeditiously withdrawn” “given the very low rate of adverse events associated with its use.”  

In June 2022, the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists wrote a joint letter to President Biden urging him to support the lifting of the REMS restrictions as well. In addition, there is a long list of advocacy organizations in support of this position (many of which have signed onto this letter) and a Change.org petition started in early July 2022 with over 25,000 signatures.  

As a result of these unnecessary restrictions:

·      Few clinicians prescribe the medication as part of their practice. It is largely dedicated to specialists like OB/GYNs rather than internists and nurse practitioners, the clinicians most likely to engage with low-income women.

·      The false impression that abortions, and abortion medication, are dangerous and frightening is perpetuated. 

·      The American Psychological Association reports that barriers to abortion access are linked to increased levels of stress and anxiety for women.  

The immediate result of lifting this unnecessary restriction will be to enable millions more women to access abortion medication early in their pregnancies.  

After Roe was overturned, Secretary Becerra said, “If there is something we can do, we will find it and do it at [Health and Human Services].” He then went on to say, “Medication abortion has been approved by the FDA for years and is safe for patients.” We wholeheartedly agree with both of these statements and ask you to urge the FDA to immediately lift the REMs restrictions on abortion medication.  

Senator, we ask for your help in urging the FDA to lift the political, oppressive, and unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone today.

This is something the federal government could do TODAY to ease access to safe, effective abortion medication for millions of people. 

I am so grateful for your help! We're gonna win this one!

Best,

Allison