The FDA’s reevaluation of mifepristone, the nation’s most widely used abortion pill, won’t wrap up until next year — and the anti-abortion movement is not pleased. As CBS News reports, with contributions from the Associated Press, the agency laid out its timeline in a court-ordered filing late on October 7, 2026.
The update offers the first real look at the review Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered. The FDA expects to finish its safety study by mid-December, with a report on the findings due “no later than March 2027.” Only then will it decide whether new restrictions are warranted.
To get there, the agency says it is applying a “statistical data mining method” to an electronic database of medical injury and side-effect reports, hunting for “unknown safety concerns.” That’s a notable search for a drug the FDA approved in 2000 and has repeatedly reaffirmed as safe.
The slower pace drew sharp words from Gavin Oxley of Americans United for Life, who faulted the Trump administration for a lack of “true leadership” and called it “clearly uninterested in mitigating the ongoing harms caused by the abortion pill.” Anti-abortion groups and their congressional allies have pressed for new limits on mifepristone since Trump returned to office.
The filing stems from a Louisiana lawsuit arguing that mail delivery of the pill undermines the state’s abortion ban. A 5th Circuit panel questioned that case’s merits last month, and the Supreme Court has blocked any changes to the drug until it hears the case.
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Meanwhile, the FDA is weighing petitions to change how mifepristone is prescribed and distributed. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Celine Gounder has noted that a review could curb telehealth and mail access, or limit prescribing to doctors rather than nurses and physician assistants.
