Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine arguing how the chemical abortion drug Mifepristone, half of a two-drug protocol used to end pregnancies in early stages, has become a “tool of modern-day eugenics” to inexpensively abort millions of unborn lives through widespread abortion. The High Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 26, 2024.
Over the last eight years, the FDA has relaxed numerous restrictions making it easy to access the drug, most notably by illegally allowing mail-order delivery into the hands of pregnant women without in-person doctor visits. Now, chemical abortions account for the majority of all abortions in the nation – one-third of those abortions involving African American women despite being just 13 percent of the adult female population. In addition, an estimated 67 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with down syndrome are aborted across the country. Liberty Counsel argues the drug is being used to continue the abortion industry’s longstanding agenda of targeting “minority and disabled communities for eugenic ends.”
This is the first case since the High Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned a constitutional right to an abortion, that U.S. Supreme Court justices will weigh in on the abortion issue. The case centers around how the FDA illegally removed critical safeguards allowing near-unfettered access to Mifepristone despite the drug’s questionable safety record. Even with serious side effects harmful to women’s health, the FDA removed Mifepristone’s safety measures and health protections such as adverse event reporting, in-person doctor visits, follow-up care, and mail-order restrictions. Pro-life doctors are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold an appeals court ruling that found the FDA acted unlawfully by removing the safeguards and determined the FDA should reinstate the restrictions. The Biden Administration argues the ruling should be overruled because the drug is “safe” and the loosening of the restrictions have not been proven as harmful. SCOTUS has temporarily halted reinstatement of any Mifepristone restrictions allowing the drug to remain widely available until it reviews the case. Liberty Counsel argues for reinstating the drug’s restrictions.
Liberty Counsel’s brief states that this “dangerous” abortion-inducing drug is being used by “pro-eugenic organizations” to eliminate unborn children “based on race, sex, and disability.” As the brief explains, the eugenics movement gained momentum in the 1920’s when notable figures like John D. Rockefeller, Margaret Sanger, Theodore Roosevelt, and many other progressives, academics, and medical professionals put their power, money, and time into the effort.
According to eugenicists of that time period, the goal of eugenics was to eliminate “unfit” and “undesirable” people, such as those with mental and physical disabilities as well as certain races. Many eugenicists drew a distinction between the “fit” and “unfit” along racial lines. Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood and committed her life to eugenic population control, stated the “unfit” was a “code word” for the poor, blacks, and other minorities who were a “menace to society.” She personally set-up birth-control clinics in minority communities and advanced the “Negro Project,” an initiative to propagandize birth control in black communities to curtail their population growth. Today, 86 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are in or near minority neighborhoods.
Sanger’s eugenics legacy is clearly visible with the advent and use of Mifepristone. The patent for Mifepristone belongs to the Population Council, a nonprofit public health research organization with deep ties to eugenics. When the eugenics movement fell out of favor with the fall of Nazi Germany, John D. Rockefeller III in 1952 founded the Population Council as a means to still advance eugenic population control, but under different guises it still uses today such as “reproductive health,” “reproductive choice,” and “family planning.”
After decades of funding and researching population control programs, the Council received the patent to Mifepristone. The drug was developed by the French company Roussel-Uclaf, who later donated the rights to the drug to the Population Council after the company was unable to find a buyer. With an opportunity for an inexpensive and widespread abortifacient drug to further its mission, the Population Council facilitated clinical trials, obtained FDA approval in 2000, and identified a manufacturer. During the FDA approval process, the Population Council transferred the rights to produce and distribute Mifepristone (RU-486) to Danco Laboratories, a “‘secretive and obscure’ entity formed in 1995 in the Cayman Islands, in return for undisclosed royalties.” Danco Laboratories then used the Chinese firm Hua Lian Pharmaceutical Co. to manufacture the compounds for the drug.
Liberty Counsel raises the question of why a “dangerous” abortion-inducing drug is owned by the Population Council.
“…the answer is clear: The Population Council’s advocacy for the easy availability of Mifepristone—despite the drug’s serious health risks—derives from the same eugenic ideology that motivated the Council’s founding,” stated Liberty Counsel. “Indeed, presenting abortion as a matter of ‘my body, my choice’ simply conceals the underlying motive of widespread abortion: shaping the composition of society through the selective elimination of preborn persons. As seen by the Population Council’s history and research interests, by emphasizing ‘reproductive freedom,’ the eugenics agenda is advanced under the guise of promoting women’s autonomy without overtly acknowledging the abortion movement’s historical connection to population control.”
“In the final analysis…[a]llowing the unlawful distribution of Mifepristone by mail would enable the Population Council’s ongoing experiments on reducing birth rates and eliminating [what they consider] ‘undesirable’ persons,” wrote Liberty Counsel.
In this case, even the FDA has submitted “expert” testimony from Texas A&M University declaring that without chemical abortion more children will be born who will likely experience social, economic, and behavioral difficulties.
“Put simply, the FDA—a federal agency—submitted a supporting declaration that claims that children should be aborted because they are more likely to be unfit for school, for adulthood, and for society,” stated Liberty Counsel.
Liberty Counsel concluded that the links between abortion, racist eugenics, and the plot to kill millions of unborn babies via Mifepristone seems “lifted straight out of a pulp apocalyptic thriller, but sadly it is true.”
Liberty Counsel filed the brief on behalf the Frederick Douglass Foundation and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which are a broad group of faith organizations, churches, nonprofits, and individuals. The groups have a strong interest in exposing the “undeniable links” between the racist and eugenic history of the abortion movement and the FDA’s chemical abortion regimen, which have had catastrophic effects on their communities.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Abortion is directly rooted in the eugenics movement. Today, chemical abortions have become a disturbingly effective tool to murder unborn babies in the womb, especially in minority communities, thus continuing the discriminatory practices of eugenics. Chemical abortions harm women physically and emotionally and cruelly kill defenseless children in the womb. The FDA can no longer be allowed to circumvent safety laws to allow a eugenic drug to destroy more innocent lives.”
