WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana is asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate abortion pill manufacturers for making deceptive claims about the safety of their products for the women who take them.

In an April 20 letter to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Banks argues that the FTC’s jurisdiction over “false and misleading medical claims” must be applied to the “most common method of administering an abortion.”

“Many online clinics — including online clinics that ship to women in Indiana — explicitly state on their websites that abortion drugs are safer than Tylenol,” the letter says. “Others claim that abortion drugs almost never cause serious complications. At best, these statements are misleading. There is no scientific basis for the claim that mifepristone is ‘safer than Tylenol.’”

“Clinics do not rely on controlled studies in making this claim, something the FTC has historically found relevant in evaluating whether health companies engaged in deceptive trade acts,” it continues. “Indeed, no controlled study has ever reached such a conclusion. Emerging evidence indicates that abortion drugs are more dangerous than manufacturers and dispensers claim and cause serious medical complications in a concerning number of cases (…) It is certainly not the case that 10 percent of people suffer hemorrhaging after taking Tylenol.”

Further, the letter adds, these companies “mislead pregnant women in a second way, by coaching them to lie to hospital staff in the event of a complication. According to various clinics, women who receive emergency treatment following a chemical abortion can get the care they need without mentioning the abortion. Some clinics even claim that the treatment for chemical abortion complications is the same as treatment for miscarriage.”

“The FTC has the tools in its toolbox to hold abortion drug companies to their obligations under consumer protection law,” Banks concludes. “I encourage you to act swiftly and without delay.”

An April 2025 analysis by the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) concluded that almost 11% of women suffer sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other major conditions after taking mifepristone, according to insurance data, plus similar findings by the Restoration of America Foundation as part of a “growing body of evidence indicating that the health risks associated with mifepristone abortions are severe, widespread, and significantly underreported.

Mail-order abortion pills have become arguably the abortion lobby’s most important tool for perpetuating abortion-on-demand, as it makes chemical abortions even in pro-life states extremely difficult to prevent. The latest data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found 1,125,930 clinical abortions in 2025, a slight increase from 2024, which Guttmacher attributed in large part to abortion pills. Planned Parenthood’s 2024-2025 annual report boasts it alone committed 434,450 abortions, a record number for the organization and 8% more than the previous year.

In May 2025, the Trump administration promised to review the safety data on abortion pills, but nearly a year without updates has prompted frustration among pro-lifers, with Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri going so far as to question if the study is underway at all. Pro-lifers also argue a new official finding on the pills’ safety should not be necessary to restore enforcement of the federal law against mailing abortion pills across state lines.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Louisiana David Joseph denied a lawsuit by Louisiana to force action, granting the federal government’s request to stay the case while ordering it to provide a status update on its alleged review in six months. Louisiana is appealing the decision.