Hawley unveils the "Declaration for Life" and asks candidates to commit to banning the abortion drug
United States Senator for Missouri, at the first Missouri Prayer Breakfast in the Russell Senate Office Building and in a subsequent official press release
“This Declaration for Life, written by pastors, is calling on everyday Christians across America to stand for life and confront the scourge of chemical abortion.”
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
The primary record of the Declaration for Life, the pledge Hawley is asking officeholders and candidates to sign. The declaration states that the abortion drug is "nearly always fatal to the unborn child and frequently injurious to the mother," that mifepristone "can now be mailed into every state and city in America, regardless of local rules," and calls on Congress "to ban the chemical abortion drug mifepristone."
Reporting
About this source
Contemporaneous reporting on the September 16 event, naming Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and the Christian musician Sean Feucht as joining Hawley at the unveiling, and recording Hawley's request that candidates in both parties sign the pledge. The page blocks automated retrieval; its full text was obtained through the Firecrawl index on September 18, 2026, and the same quotations appear in the syndicated version carried by Yahoo News.
Before the quotation
S. 4066 had drawn no new cosponsor since June 23 and had received no committee action. Reporting at the time noted the bill had not been much discussed within the Senate Republican conference.
After the quotation
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said anti-abortion groups would circulate the declaration as a standard for candidates. The pledge is modelled on the Taxpayer Protection Pledge used to bind Republicans against tax increases.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should Congress ban the abortion pill, mifepristone, as Josh Hawley has proposed?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case's fixed reference point is Hawley's proposition that Congress should ban mifepristone by revoking its federal approval. Here he not only restates the proposition but attaches a loyalty mechanism to it, asking candidates to pledge support for the ban. The closest competing label is mixed_or_conditional, because the statement is addressed to Christians and churches rather than to legislators and could be read as a cultural appeal rather than a legislative demand. That loses because the declaration's own operative request is that Congress ban the drug, and Hawley paired the unveiling with a renewed call for a vote on his bill.
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Should Congress ban the abortion pill, mifepristone, as Josh Hawley has proposed?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
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Read the full case“Unfortunately the Republican Party has lost its voice on the life issue and in that vacuum there are leaders that are stepping forward like Sen. Hawley calling upon the church, communities and the country to step up on behalf of the unborn.”Read statement
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