Flawed EPPC Report Aims to Cast Doubt on Long-Standing Research Documenting Abortion Pill Safety
An April report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), which has been met with criticism over its methodological rigor and lack of data transparency, has led to renewed calls for the FDA to restrict access to mifepristone, the abortion pill used in nearly two-thirds of U.S. abortions. The group, which describes itself as working to “push back against the extreme progressive agenda,” analyzed an undisclosed source of insurance claims and reported that almost 11% of patients who took mifepristone experienced a serious adverse event, contradicting the well-established safety profile of the drug. Mifepristone, used alongside misoprostol to terminate pregnancies, has been approved as a safe and effective drug by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 2000. The FDA prescribing information notes that 10 clinical trials with collectively more than 30,000 patients found that serious adverse effects occur in fewer than 0.5% of patients. Other studies have found similar rates, and an analysis of more than 100 studies found that, in the vast majority, more than 99% of patients had no serious complications. Although the new report is framed as research-based analysis, the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other reproductive health specialists say it lacks transparency and overstates risk by relying on broad and undisclosed diagnosis codes, including events not clearly tied to the drug, like ectopic pregnancies.
Despite being widely criticized for methodological flaws, lack of transparency, and distortion, findings from the report have been used to amplify false claims that mifepristone is unsafe. Mentions of abortion pills in news and on the platform X spiked on April 28, the day the report was released, marking one of the largest spikes for abortion pill mentions in 2025 to date, with a smaller spike following on May 6. Safety of mifepristone was a dominant theme in these posts – between April 28 and June 1, mentions of safety were found in approximately a quarter (26%) of X posts identified in our search on the topic, compared to just under 4% in the period before. Many of the posts cited the report’s false claims that “serious complications from abortion pill are 22x higher than FDA reports.” Commenters on X posts sharing the study repeated the false claim that medication abortion is unsafe along with other common myths about mifepristone, including the incorrect claim that it causes infertility.
The report has been cited in calls to review federal regulations surrounding mifepristone, including from anti-abortion U.S. representatives on social media. Although FDA Commissioner Marty Makary had previously said in late April that the agency had no plans to restrict the availability of mifepristone unless new evidence came to light, the FDA now plans to begin a complete safety review.