Two weeks after President Donald Trump‘s Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he would review the safety of the commonly prescribed abortion drug mifepristone, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a generic form of mifepristone.
(Mifepristone is used in a regimen together with misoprostol to end a pregnancy that is less than 70 days in duration, according the Mayo Clinic, which says the drug is “also used to control high blood sugar (hyperglycemia) caused by high cortisol levels in the blood (hypercortisolism) in patients with Cushing’s syndrome who also have type 2 diabetes and have failed surgery or who cannot have surgery.” )
The day before the federal government shut down, the FDA — which is overseen by HHS — reported that the mifepristone tablets made by Evita Solutions were “therapeutically equivalent” to the brand-name version, Mifeprex, which has been available in the U.S. since 2000.
Former Vice President Mike Pence responded to the FDA approval on Wednesday in his op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled, ‘Make HHS and FDA Pro-Life Again,’ with the subtitle, “Approval of generic mifepristone is why I warned against RFK Jr.’s appointment.”
Government’s first duty is to protect the lives of its own citizens, born and unborn. If RFK Jr. won’t defend the most vulnerable among us, he should step aside so the president can nominate a leader who will, writes @Mike_Pence https://t.co/XxcryPgD59
— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) October 9, 2025
Note: In January, when President Donald Trump nominated Kennedy, Pence’s organization Advancing American Freedom launched a six-figure ad campaign against the nomination highlighting Kennedy’s past comments supporting abortion access throughout pregnancy and also what it characterized as alarming claims the nominee had made regarding vaccines and autism.
With a link to the op-ed, Pence wrote on social media: “Government’s first duty is to protect the lives of its own citizens, born and unborn. If RFK Jr. won’t defend the most vulnerable among us, he should step aside so the president can nominate a leader who will.”
Note: Brittany Fonteno, CEO of the National Abortion Federation, said in a statement that the approval of a second generic drug for mifepristone “underscores what research has shown for decades: medication abortion is safe, effective, and essential health care, used by millions with proven efficacy.”