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May 14, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextSENATE RESOLUTION 732—EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT OVER 25
PROVING THAT MIFEPRISTONE IS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SHOULD BE RESPECTED,
AND LAW AND POLICY GOVERNING ACCESS TO LIFESAVING, TIME-SENSITIVE
MEDICATION ABORTION CARE IN THE UNITED STATES SHOULD BE EQUITABLE,
TRANSPARENT, AND BASED ON THE BEST AVAILABLE PEER-REVIEWED EVIDENCE-
BASED SCIENCE
Ms. WARREN (for herself, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Murray, Ms. Smith, Ms. Alsobrooks, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Blumenthal, Ms. Blunt Rochester, Mr. Booker, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Coons, Ms. Cortez Masto, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Gallego, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Hassan, Mr. Heinrich, Mr. Hickenlooper, Ms. Hirono, Mr. Kaine, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Kim, Mr. King, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Lujan, Mr. Markey, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Ossoff, Mr. Padilla, Mr. Peters, Mr. Reed, Ms. Rosen, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Schatz, Mr. Schiff, Ms. Slotkin, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Warner, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Welch, and Mr. Whitehouse) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions:
S. Res. 732
Whereas Congress, by enacting the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 301 et seq.), authorized the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) to determine, based on the
scientific evidence, whether a drug is safe and effective for
the intended use of the drug;
Whereas Congress authorized the FDA to impose or maintain a
Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for a drug
only where “necessary to ensure that the benefits of the
drug outweigh the risks of the drug” considering certain
statutorily enumerated factors;
Whereas Congress prohibited the FDA from imposing or
maintaining an Element to Assure Safe Use (ETASU) within a
REMS program if, inter alia, the ETASU is “unduly burdensome
on patient access,” considering in particular “patients who
have difficulty accessing health care”;
Whereas mifepristone is a medication recommended by leading
medical authorities for its FDA-approved use to terminate a
pregnancy and for its off-label use to manage miscarriage;
Whereas mifepristone received approval from the FDA more
than 25 years ago, and according to the FDA, the “efficacy
and safety have become well-established by both research and
experience, and serious complications have proven to be
extremely rare”;
Whereas the FDA approved mifepristone following a rigorous
54-month review period that included the review of 3 complete
phases of clinical trials that involved thousands of
participants and that showed mifepristone was safe and
effective for termination of an early pregnancy;
Whereas, despite mifepristone's exceptional safety record,
the FDA still regulates this medication more heavily than 99
percent of prescription drugs;
Whereas, in December 2021, after an extensive review of
high-quality research and years of real-world data confirming
that mifepristone remains just as safe when patients can fill
their prescription by mail or at a pharmacy, the FDA
concluded that the Mifepristone REMS should be modified to
lessen the burdens on patient access and the health care
system and, in January 2023, approved this modification to
the REMS that removed the in-person dispensing ETASU and
added a pharmacy certification ETASU, allowing Mifeprex and
its approved generics to be dispensed by certified
pharmacies, both in-person and by mail, as well as by or
under the supervision of certified prescribers;
Whereas numerous peer-reviewed studies since January 2023
have further established that mifepristone remains highly
safe and effective;
Whereas mifepristone is more accessible when dispensed to
eligible patients by mail or at a pharmacy after clinical
evaluation and counseling through telemedicine;
Whereas few drugs have been studied so extensively after
their FDA approval and few hold such an explicit and
convincing safety record as mifepristone;
Whereas leading medical and scientific organizations,
including the World Health Organization, the American Medical
Association, the American College of Obstetricians &
Gynecologists, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the
Society of Family Planning, and the Society for Maternal-
Fetal Medicine, recognize that mifepristone is safe and
effective, including when prescribed through telemedicine and
dispensed to eligible patients by mail or at a pharmacy, and
continue to recommend the use of mifepristone as part of an
evidence-based regimen to safely end a pregnancy;
Whereas the importance of medication abortion is recognized
globally, and the World Health Organization has included
mifepristone on its list of essential medicines since 2005;
Whereas the safety record of mifepristone is demonstrated
by its availability in more than 90 countries, including
countries without restrictions like the mifepristone REMS;
Whereas medication abortion accounted for 63 percent of all
abortions in the United States in 2023;
Whereas, following the decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health
Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), to overturn decades of
precedent in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Planned
Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), as of May 2026,
bans have eliminated all or some abortions in 20 States,
compounding an already complex landscape and exacerbating the
existing abortion-access crisis;
Whereas, in the years since the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States to overturn Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S.
113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833
(1992), in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597
U.S. 215 (2022), anti-abortion politicians and groups have
filed multiple baseless lawsuits against the FDA over its
approval and regulation of mifepristone, attempting to use
misinformation about mifepristone to justify restricting
access to this essential medication nationwide, despite its
longstanding safety record;
Whereas the impact to the health and well-being of patients
across the country would be devastating if any action reduced
patient access to medication abortion or increased barriers
to prescribing and dispensing medication abortion;
Whereas abortion bans and restrictions force patients to
travel greater distances for care and face longer wait times,
and force some patients who are unable to access care to
remain pregnant against their will;
Whereas scientific research has demonstrated that
restricting access to abortion increases the risk of domestic
violence for pregnant people and data suggests that the
privacy of a telehealth consultation may increase a patient's
willingness to disclose abuse or coercion; and
Whereas, due to discrimination, unnecessary restrictions on
abortion, including medication abortion, disproportionately
push care out of reach for—
(1) Black and Indigenous people;
(2) people of color;
(3) immigrants;
(4) people with lower incomes;
(5) people in rural communities;
(6) LGBTQ+ people;
(7) people living with disabilities;
(8) people experiencing intimate partner violence; and
(9) other pregnant people who have been disproportionately
harmed by systemic inequities in health care: Now, therefore,
be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that—
(1) FDA policies affecting access to medication abortion
care in the United States must be based on transparent
scientific review of the full body of gold-standard medical
evidence, as well as considerations of potential burdens on
patient access and the health care delivery system, as
required by
the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 301 et
seq.);
(2) Congress has granted the FDA the authority to regulate
prescription drug medications and medical devices based on
scientific determinations of their safety and efficacy
grounded in the best available peer-reviewed evidence-based
science, and without political interference;
(3) the FDA has performed multiple scientific reviews of
mifepristone over 25 years, each time finding mifepristone to
be safe and effective for pregnancy termination, including
when mifepristone is prescribed through telemedicine and
dispensed to eligible patients by mail or at a pharmacy,
based on high-quality clinical research and real-world-safety
data; and
(4) preserving and expanding access to medication abortion
care, including preserving the ability to prescribe
mifepristone through telemedicine and dispense to eligible
patients by mail or at a pharmacy, is important to ensure
equitable access to abortion for patients harmed by
statutory, regulatory, financial, and circumstantial
restrictions that worsen reproductive health disparities
for—
(A) Black and Indigenous people;
(B) people of color;
(C) immigrants;
(D) people with lower incomes;
(E) people in rural communities;
(F) LGBTQ+ people;
(G) people living with disabilities;
(H) people experiencing intimate partner violence; and
(I) people in other marginalized communities.