Insurance Data Reveals Repeated Abortion Attempts Due to High Failure Rate

Jamie Bryan Hall, Director of Data Analysis, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Ryan T. Anderson, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

May 12, 2025

• The real-world failure rate of mifepristone abortion—at least 5.26 percent, or about one in 19 cases—is double the failure rate from the U.S. clinical trials and roughly two-thirds higher than the combined failure rate from all clinical trials reported on the FDA-approved drug label.

• Combined with our prior finding that 10.93 percent of women experience a serious adverse event and adjusting to avoid double-counting, we find that 13.51 percent of women—roughly one in seven—experience at least one serious adverse event or repeated abortion attempt within 45 days of first attempting a mifepristone abortion.

• This largest-known study of the abortion pill is based on analysis of data from an all-payer insurance claims database that includes 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023.

• The FDA should immediately reinstate its earlier, stronger patient safety protocols to ensure physician responsibility for women who take mifepristone under their care, as well as mandate full reporting of its side effects.

• The FDA should further investigate the harm this drug causes to women and, based on objective safety and effectiveness criteria, reconsider its approval altogether.