(LifeSiteNews) — President Donald Trump’s pick for Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services signaled his support for looking into the dangers associated with chemical abortion pills.

Last Thursday, James O’Neill told Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri that he backs a safety review of mifepristone.

O’Neill told Hawley that it is the Food and Drug Administration’s policy is “to ensure that all drugs are safe and effective, and sometimes new data needs a review.”

He also said that “mifepristone actually has a REMS (risk evaluation and mitigation strategy), meaning it has been designated for a long time as something that needs periodic review of safety data,” he said.

“The secretary has pledged to do a safety review of mifepristone,” O’Neill added, referring to Robert F. Kennedy, “and I strongly support that review.”

The HHS nominee to be @SecKennedy‘s deputy just pledged to conduct an updated safety review on the chemical abortion drug, mifepristone, after a new study shows it leaves 1 in 10 women with severe health effects

That’s a win for life and for women across the country pic.twitter.com/MOv0tPff2l

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 8, 2025

A recent study showed that nearly 11 percent of women in the U.S. who take mifepristone suffer serious adverse events, a rate 22 times higher than what is reported on the drug label.

The study was released by the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center last month. The researchers concluded that “simply stated, mifepristone, as used in real-world conditions, is not ‘safe and effective.’”

As reported by LifeSite journalist Emily Mangiaracina, prevalence of chemical abortions in the U.S. has rapidly increased since 2000, when the abortion pill was first approved for use by the FDA, especially as the government has rolled back abortion pill regulations.

In 2011, the drug was placed under a safety system known as REMS, after serious adverse events – including multiple deaths – were reported. REMS allows the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to monitor these adverse events. But under the Obama FDA in 2016, requirements to report all abortion pill complications were removed. Going forward, only deaths were to be reported, significantly hampering safety data.

By December 2021, the Biden FDA axed the requirement that the abortion pill be dispensed in person and allowed them to be permanently shipped by mail.

But in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in February, Kennedy confirmed that Trump has asked him to study the dangers of abortifacient drugs.

“During the Biden administration, the NIH did something that was inexcusable, which is to tell doctors and patients not to report injuries, and that’s not a good policy,” he said.

While being questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing weeks earlier, Kennedy insisted that “every abortion is a tragedy” when pressed on his abortion stance. He also indicated that it is important to know the “adverse effects” of every drug, including the abortion drug mifepristone.

“I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year,” Kennedy, who is generally supportive of legal abortion, replied when questioned by the fervently pro-abortion Senator Maggie Hassan.