FIRST ON FOX: A pro-life group is releasing a new report claiming abortions have continued to rise nationwide since 2020 because of a Biden administration FDA policy that allows abortion pills to be prescribed via telehealth and shipped by mail — a move the group says the Trump administration could reverse.

In a report obtained by Fox News Digital, the Restoration of America Foundation (ROAF) argues that a COVID-era FDA policy under former President Joe Biden is driving an estimated more than 500 mail-order chemical abortions per day, citing data from Guttmacher and WeCount.

The data also shows that chemical abortions now account for the majority of abortions, making up about 63% in 2023, a jump from 39% in 2017.

The report also estimates that there were roughly 170,000 additional abortions in 2024 than would have happened if the abortion rate had remained at 2019 levels.

“Since hitting a low in 2017, the national abortion rate has seen a persistent and troubling climb,” the report states. “In 2019, the last full year that abortion by mail was clearly illegal, there were an estimated 916,460 abortions. Using our estimate for 2024, the overall growth in abortion from 2019 to 2024 was 22 percent. Over the same window, the U.S. population grew by just 2.9 percent. Had the abortion rate remained steady from 2019, there would have been 171,103 fewer abortions in 2024.”

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The ROAF found that a COVID-era policy by the FDA under former President Joe Biden was the driving force behind an estimated more than 500 mail-order chemical abortions per day. (Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

The findings show abortion-by-mail made up roughly one in four abortions in the U.S. in the first half of 2025.

WeCount data cited in the report also shows an estimated 244,590 do-it-yourself abortions were facilitated by telehealth in 2024, including more than 120,000 pills sent into states where abortion was restricted or banned after the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022, giving the power to make abortion laws back to the states.

The Biden administration policy removed safety standards that required women to see a doctor to be prescribed mifepristone, allowing it to be prescribed through telehealth and sent by mail. The report argues that the FDA under Biden justified the change using limited studies and adverse-event data, despite most mandatory reporting requirements for mifepristone complications being removed in 2016 under the Obama administration. A research paper in 2021 additionally compared adverse-event data with Planned Parenthood data and concluded that the system is “inadequate” to evaluate the safety of mifepristone abortions.

“People are calling up and saying whatever they need to say to get the drug in the mail,” ROAF CEO Doug Truax said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “The point that we’re making is that abortions are on the rise dramatically. 874,000 in 2023, up to 1.1 million in 2024. Then on this trajectory, by the time President Trump leaves office, it’d be about 1.4 million a year. And so it’s largely driven by the drugs going out in the mail.”

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“There’s about 150 women a day that are being seriously harmed by this drug,” Truax continued. “So we need to get them to go see the doctor. The doctor needs to verify where they’re at with the pregnancy. Obviously, if it’s an ectopic pregnancy, it means they could take this drug, and they could die from it, which has happened. But there are all kinds of sepsis and rupturing and hemorrhaging and everything going on with this drug.”

“So there are two angles to this. We’re very pro-life over here. We want to go to zero abortions in the country. But the other angle is that this is a women’s health issue. So we need to decrease the number of abortions, and we need to basically save women from being harmed by this,” he added.

Truax also noted that states with higher populations are receiving the most abortion pills through the mail and that Democrat-led states have enacted shield laws preventing GOP-led states from taking legal action against providers.

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The ROAF said the Trump administration could immediately reverse the Biden-era policy. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“For instance, Texas, they don’t have abortion anymore, but they sure do,” he said. “People think it’s down to zero. It’s not at all. It’s about where it was. So you have all these abortionists in, to name a few, Massachusetts and California. There’s dispensing organizations now around the country and around the globe that will mail these things out. They’re very active getting these abortion drugs into states that said, ‘we don’t want abortion here.'”

The FDA continues to keep the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone suspended — a safety rule that had been in place for roughly 20 years before Biden’s FDA permanently removed it following a COVID-era suspension.

The policy was met with legal challenges under the previous administration, but the Supreme Court allowed it to remain in effect after ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled the FDA’s action under Biden was likely “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Truax said that the Trump administration has the authority to nix the policy, and urged the federal government to do so.

“I think that from a political standpoint, they’d rather not talk about it. But our point is, from a political standpoint, it’s going to start hurting. Pro-life Americans are really grateful to the president for the Supreme Court that we have, they got Roe thrown out, as it should have been a long time ago. But there’s more work to be done. We’re grateful for defunding Planned Parenthood. That’s great for a year. But the bottom line is, if the number of abortions is actually going up and there’s a step you could take to stop it, we got to do that,” he said.

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ROAF CEO Doug Truax urged the Trump administration to scrap the FDA policy. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“There’s a massive number of pro-life Americans that are base supporters of the president who may say, ‘wait a minute, we’ve been in power for this entire time and the number of abortions keeps going up, and we could have stopped it,'” he added.

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill and state officials have been calling on the Trump administration to take action.

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Last summer, more than 20 attorneys general urged Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to complete a safety review of mifepristone and consider reinstating safeguards or removing the drug from the market. Kennedy and Makary vowed to conduct a new review of the safety of the drug, but they have not released a timeline for the results.

“President Trump, Secretary Kennedy, and Commissioner Makary already have the tools at their disposal to reverse the legally and scientifically dubious decisions of the Biden Administration’s FDA and to reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement. The Trump Administration must act swiftly to restore commonsense medical safeguards to the chemical abortion pill,” the ROAF report says.

A University of Notre Dame law professor as well as a research professor emeritus told Fox News Digital they are cutting ties with the university’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies in protest over the institute’s appointment of a professor who has publicly supported abortion.

“I confirm that I submitted my resignation to the University President, Provost, Keough School Dean, and the current Liu Institute Director, giving up my appointments as a Faculty Fellow and member of the Faculty Executive Committee of the Liu Institute yesterday,” Diane A. Desierto, professor of law and global affairs, told Fox News Digital in a statement Wednesday.  

Additionally, in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital on Tuesday, Robert M. Gimello, research professor emeritus of theology, informed Michel Hockx, director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame, that he does not want to be affiliated with the institute following the appointment of Susan Ostermann.

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Fox News Digital obtained a letter from Robert M. Gimello, where he stated he no longer wants to be affiliated with the university. (Getty Images)

Notre Dame announced Jan. 8 that Ostermann, who joined the university in 2017 as a global affairs professor, will assume her role as director of the Asian studies center in July. 

“Dear Michel: In dismay, and with regret, I write to tell you that the recently announced appointment of your successor as Director of the Liu Center compels my resignation from my position as Emeritus Fellow of the Center,” Gimello wrote in the letter emailed to Hockx on Monday. 

“Please remove my name and photograph from the Liu Institute’s roster,” Gimello added. “I can only hope —and I will pray — for a future in which the Institute fulfills its proper role as a faithful instrument of our University’s Catholic mission.”

Gimello is not listed as a Liu Institute emeritus fellow on his university biography page, but other profiles of Gimello list him as having been a fellow.

In 2022, Ostermann co-authored an article titled, “Lies about abortion have dictated our health policy,” with former Notre Dame professor Tamara Kay. 

In the article, Ostermann and Kay argued, “Almost 90% of abortions occur during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy when there are no babies or fetuses. There are only blastocysts or embryos so tiny they are too small to be seen on an abdominal ultrasound.”

They also called it a “lie” that abortion is dangerous, writing, “This could not be further from the truth. Research shows abortion is safe and does not have long-term effects on physical or mental health.”

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The University of Notre Dame Campus with the Golden Dome, Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and Washington Hall. (Aaron Yoder via Getty Images)

The authors further wrote that abortion “doesn’t cause cancer, it doesn’t affect future fertility, and most people feel relief after an abortion and do not regret their decision. Up to 11 weeks, medication abortions are generally performed using mifepristone and misoprostol, which are safer than taking Tylenol.” 

In another 2022 article published by Salon, titled “Forced pregnancy and childbirth are violence against women — and also terrible health policy,” Ostermann and Kay wrote, “Criminalizing abortion results in irreparable harm. In fact, it actually has the opposite policy effect that anti-abortion advocates say they want: It can increase abortion rates, unintended pregnancies and infant mortality.”

Additionally, they wrote, “Abortion access is freedom-enhancing, in the truest sense of the word. Consistent with integral human development that emphasizes social justice and human dignity, abortion access respects the inherent dignity of women, their freedom to make choices and to evaluate medical and other risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth.”

Gimello told Fox News Digital in a statement that his resignation was driven by Ostermann’s public advocacy for abortion.

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Ostermann and her co-author Kay wrote that it is a “lie” that abortion is dangerous, writing, “This could not be further from the truth. Research shows abortion is safe and does not have long-term effects on physical or mental health.” (iStock)

“You would be correct to assume that the principal reason for my resignation is the sad fact that administrators of the world’s preeminent Catholic university have chosen to appoint, as director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, a scholar who has repeatedly, publicly, and adamantly proclaimed her opposition to (verging at times, it seems to me, on contempt for) the Catholic Church’s firm teaching that protection and nourishment of human life, from the moment of conception until natural death, is a sacred duty incumbent upon the whole human community,” Gimello said. 

He added, “Continued formal association with a unit of the University led by such a person is, for me, simply unconscionable — this regardless of whatever considerable talents and accomplishments the appointee might otherwise bring to the job.” 

Gimello also expressed concern that Ostermann’s appointment would confuse those outside of Notre Dame about the university’s adherence to Catholic identity. 

“Moreover, I am myself a scholar whose work focuses chiefly on Asia, particularly Asia’s religious and intellectual traditions, both in themselves and in comparison with Christianity,” he said. “The Liu Institute, for its part, is not only Notre Dame’s principal organ for the study of Asia; it is also its chief conduit for institutional relations with Asia. It is, as it were, Notre Dame’s ‘Asian face.’”

Gimello said he is concerned that Ostermann’s appointment will confuse those outside of Notre Dame about the university’s adherence to Catholic identity.  (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

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“Questions and controversies regarding the nature and value of human life (not least questions concerning abortion, population control, euthanasia, etc.) are, of course, central to the intellectual, religious, and ethical traditions of all Asian countries, all the more so in these troubled and contentious times,” Gimello said.

“I believe, therefore, that it is essential to Notre Dame’s Asian outreach that it faithfully represent to its Asian and Asian Studies interlocutors the Catholic Church’s views on these most fundamental matters,” he added. “I doubt that anyone so hostile to, or dismissive of, those views — as this newly appointed person seems clearly to be — even if she were to try to muffle her hostility, could do justice to Notre Dame’s properly Catholic endeavors in and about Asia. I fear now that this appointment will suggest to our Asian associates, and to scholars of Asia at other institutions here and abroad, that Notre Dame is deeply at odds with the Church that it claims to represent in the realms of higher education.”

Notre Dame told Fox News Digital that it stands by their previous statement about Ostermann’s appointment. 

A representative affiliated with the university said that “Gimello retired from the Department of Theology in 2017 and has not been an active member of either the Theology Department or Liu Institute since then. Until recently, he was listed as an emeritus fellow with the Liu Institute as a professional courtesy.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Ostermann for comment.  

Under Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC), teachers have been recruited in three phases in the state. Now restoration is to be done under TRE-4. Candidates were waiting for this for many months. Now this wait is about to end. BPSC will issue an advertisement for the reinstatement of teachers next month (March). Its preparations have been completed. This information was given from JDU’s X handle on Thursday (February 05, 2026).

More than 2,27,000 recruited in three phases

It was informed through the post that giving further impetus to the expansion of education in the state, 44,000 teachers will soon be reinstated in government schools. Advertisement will be released from BPSC next month. It was also said that Nitish government is fully committed to empowering quality education in Bihar. More than 2,27,000 teachers have been appointed in three phases in the last two years.

Giving further impetus to the expansion of education in the state, more than 44,000 teachers will soon be reinstated.
Nitish government is fully committed to empowering quality education in Bihar, more than 2,27,000 teachers have been appointed in three phases in the last two years.… pic.twitter.com/9SaeKAE4BX

— Janata Dal (United) (@Jduonline) February 5, 2026

TRE-4 not mentioned in BPSC calendar

Let us tell you that last Wednesday (February 04, 2026) teacher candidates had created a ruckus in Patna. They said that there is no mention of TRE-4 in BPSC’s calendar 2026 whereas Education Minister Sunil Kumar had said that the advertisement will be released by the end of January. Amidst this protest, teacher recruitment has been announced today (Thursday).

On the other hand, under the Right to Education Act (RTE), the last date for online registration for enrollment in Class-1 in private schools has now been extended to 15th February. Earlier this date was fixed as 31 January. Parents will now be able to apply on Gyandeep portal till 15th February.

According to the newly determined schedule, verification of the applications received will be done by 18th February, while online school allotment of the verified students will be done on 23rd February. Enrollment of selected students will be done in the respective schools from 24th February to 10th March. The Education Department has appealed to all the parents to register within the stipulated period and provide their children with the benefit of this opportunity of free and compulsory education.

Also read- What is the new rule for running girls hostels and lodges in Bihar? Take note otherwise your license will be cancelled.

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