During a contentious Senate hearing in the morning and a later press conference, lawmakers and anti-abortion groups challenged the Food and Drug Administration to roll back Biden-era policies that allowed mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth and sent through the mail.
Anti-abortion leaders and their GOP allies have been pressing the Trump administration on mifepristone for the better part of a year, to no avail.
There's a growing concern among anti-abortion leaders that their biggest issues— limiting the abortion pill mifepristone and strengthening the Hyde amendment, which bans federal funding for abortions — have been relegated to the back burner by a president who no longer needs the groups that helped him win reelection.
On mifepristone, the Trump administration has defended Biden-era telehealth regulations in court, approved a generic version of the drug, and is reportedly slow-walking a long-promised safety review for political concerns.
"There's definitely some ill feeling" between anti-abortion leaders and the administration, said Patrick Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Christian conservative think tank. "Pro-lifers feel the sense that Trump is happy to let them go separate ways."
Currently serving his last term, Trump essentially doesn't need to cater to his base at this point. And maintaining a midterm-friendly approach serves him better, according to GOP consultant Liz Mair.
"Anything that makes Republicans even a little bit more imperiled in the midterms ups the chances that Trump's getting impeached a third, fourth, fifth, sixth time. That's literally the stakes for him at this point," Mair previously told The Hill when discussing calls for Trump to deliver on anti-abortion aims.
GOP lawmakers have been speaking up more to ask why there's been little federal movement on mifepristone, and to put daylight between themselves and Trump's call to be "flexible" on Hyde.
Senate Health Committee chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has made no secret of his frustration with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary over mifepristone. But notably, there were no federal officials testifying at Wednesday's Health Committee hearing.
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