In the post-Roe world, one of the prime targets of antiabortion activists is medication abortion, a two-drug regimen in which a pregnant person takes mifepristone followed by misoprostol.
A lawsuit filed late last year by abortion opponents in an Amarillo, Texas, federal district court asks Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative known for his antiabortion views, to revoke the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone. They argue the agency didn’t properly study the drug and has removed “even the most basic precautionary requirements” associated with its use. Kacsmaryk is expected to issue a ruling any day now.
The claim is weak given that medication abortion has been available in the U.S. since 2000, is currently used for more than half the abortions in this country and is exceptionally effective and safe (with serious adverse effects occurring in less than a third of 1% of the abortions). If anything, health care providers and researchers believe it has been overly regulated. For years, obtaining a prescription for abortion medication required at least one in-person visit and was available only in certain health care settings and under certain conditions. Recently the FDA expanded the rules to allow telehealth visits to get a prescription and allowed the drugs to be dispensed through pharmacies that meet certain qualifications. (However, on Friday, Walgreens, one of the nation’s largest retail pharmacies, bowed to pressure and announced it would stop providing mifepristone in 20 states where attorneys general are challenging the legality of its use.
