
An early April 2023 decision by a U.S. district judge in Texas to reverse 23 years of approval of the abortion pill mifepristone has sparked explosive debate.
Mifepristone is a medicine that blocks the receptors for the hormone progesterone, which is needed for fetal development. It is part of a two-step medication abortion regimen along with misoprostol, a drug used to prevent stomach ulcers that also causes uterine contractions. Medication abortion with this two-step approach or a slightly less effective misoprostol-only regimen is now used in more than half of all abortions in the U.S.