Kyle Diamantas called anti-abortion leaders just hours after being appointed last week to temporarily replace outgoing commissioner Marty Makary at the Food and Drug Administration.

He told them that on his first full day in office — last Wednesday — he would be convening a group of scientists and clinical reviewers to assess the status of a promised-but-delayed safety study on mifepristone, the abortion drug the anti-abortion movement is seeking to ban.

But only some anti-abortion activists are hopeful that Diamantas’ outreach will result in a government crackdown on mailing abortion pills.

“We are no longer in an era where it seemed that there may have been some artificial barriers to progress,” March for Life president Jennie Bradley Lichter, who spoke to Diamantas last Tuesday, told NOTUS. “I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

For many in the movement, the Trump administration’s apparent reluctance to wade headfirst into abortion politics ahead of the midterms is making Diamantas’ effort fall flat.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the loudest Makary critics in the Senate and a staunch anti-abortion ally, expressed doubt that the review will happen, even after the change in FDA leadership. On Monday, he said that the administration will “just delay and deny indefinitely.”

“I can’t say I’m optimistic,” Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said. She said that her organization had been trying to get in touch with Diamantas but had not heard back.

“There is no Donald Trump whisperer from within the pro-life movement,” said Tom McClusky, a veteran lobbyist for the anti-abortion movement.

The FDA made a rare statement on social media last week pledging to complete the safety review of mifepristone, following a Supreme Court ruling that allowed abortion pills to be accessed through the mail. More than 100 studies and leading medical organizations, along with the FDA, have concluded the drug is safe and effective.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon didn’t answer NOTUS’ questions about the working group Lichter described, but said the FDA “is moving forward with a rigorous, science-backed review.”

Diamantas, who is not expected to seek the permanent role of FDA commissioner, didn’t respond to a text asking if the review was underway and when it might be completed.

“Comprehensive safety reviews naturally take time to conduct, and as the White House finalizes a permanent FDA commissioner nomination, the Administration remains committed to ensuring that the FDA’s findings are ironclad and unimpeachable,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told NOTUS in a statement.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. first announced in September that the administration would review mifepristone, saying potential “adverse consequences” hadn’t been adequately considered. But internal political tensions have reportedly delayed work on the evaluation.

The New York Times reported this week that the FDA review hasn’t started.

President Donald Trump has significantly cooled on abortion as a political issue since his first term, and both he and Vice President JD Vance have said abortion restrictions should be up to states. Six in 10 Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, in a March poll by Pew Research.

Some anti-abortion activists and conservatives on Capitol Hill have been wary of Diamantas, too, after court records revealed that he represented Planned Parenthood’s Florida chapter between 2014 and 2017, when he was a lawyer at firm Baker Donelson. He assured Lichter and other anti-abortion activists that he was morally opposed to abortion and requested he be taken off the case.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion opponents have focused on trying to prohibit mifepristone — now used in about six in 10 abortions in the U.S. — from being accessed through telemedicine and the mail under rules adopted during the Biden administration.

Anti-abortion activists say those rules undermine the Trump administration’s message that abortion should be left to the states.

“You can’t send pills into the states and then say we’re leaving it up to the states when the states can’t stop it,” Tobias said. She and other activists have argued that mifepristone isn’t safe, based on a review of insurance claims by the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Anti-abortion advocates have grown increasingly frustrated with the FDA for failing to provide updates on the safety review.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser, who was once close to Trump, recently called him “the problem” in getting the movement’s goals accomplished. Those involved in the movement say no one has replaced Dannenfelser as a key Trump influencer.

John Shelton, vice president of policy for Advancing American Freedom, former Vice President Mike Pence’s think tank, said “my theory of the case is that things won’t change even with a different FDA director, because things haven’t changed above.”

Diamantas’ personal opposition to abortion fits a pattern Shelton sees within the administration.

“It seems like what we’re getting with the FDA and [in Trump’s second term] is, you know, a lot of people who are personally pro-life, but they’re publicly pro-choice on chemical abortion access and other related questions,” Shelton said.

Makary’s ouster reportedly came after his reluctance to approve flavored vapes due to concerns about the health risks they might pose on children. Shortly after NOTUS first reported Makary’s poor standing with the White House, the FDA announced it was approving four new flavored vape products.

“I don’t see the removal of Makary as some great win for pro-life forces. It’s not even clear to me that his removal had anything to do with the pro-life issue,” Shelton said. “It seems like the administration is more motivated by flavored vapes than it is by unborn babies.”

Hawley, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said the “real solution” is to have Congress “ban mifepristone.”

He introduced a long-shot bill to do so, but the legislation only has six Senate co-sponsors, lacks Democratic support needed to pass the Senate and is already facing pushback from House Republicans, as NOTUS previously reported.