“What this amendment would do,” explained Representative Tom Coburn (R-OK), the amendment’s author, “is it would limit the expenditure of Federal funds by the Food and Drug Administration in their efforts to approve drugs whose sole purpose is to terminate life, to take the life of an unborn child.” More specifically, the amendment would prohibit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from using funds in the underlying fiscal 2001 agricultural appropriations bill to test or approve for use the abortion pill RU-486, also known as mifepristone.
The House rejected the Coburn amendment to H.R. 4461 on July 10, 2000 by a vote of 182-187 (Roll Call 373). We have assigned pluses to the yeas.
