FDA Allows Telemedicine Abortion During Pandemic

4/19/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER

Last Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued long-awaited guidance lifting a restriction on the abortion pill mifepristone for the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency. The move permits telemedicine abortion, a combination of medication abortion—using pills to end a pregnancy—and telemedicine, which allows health providers to supervise the use of abortion pills via videoconferencing or telephone consultations.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting FDA commissioner, wrote in a letter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine that the FDA will waive a requirement that clinicians dispense the abortion pill mifepristone to their patients in a clinic or hospital setting. The letter said research studies on telemedicine abortion “do not appear to show increases in serious safety concerns occurring with medical abortion as a result of modifying the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/04/19/fda-telemedicine-abortion-pill-mifepristone/

USA – How Politics And Bureaucracy Halted The Promise Of The Abortion Pill

Twenty years after medication abortion was approved in the U.S., patients are still jumping through hoops to access it.

By Melissa Jeltsen, HuffPost US
09/28/2020

Twenty years ago today, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, a drug used to terminate early pregnancies that held the promise of revolutionizing abortion care in the U.S.

Colloquially called the abortion pill, mifepristone is taken in combination with another drug, misoprostol, and allows patients under 10 weeks pregnant to have an abortion in the privacy of their home, instead of inside an abortion clinic. Reproductive rights activists lobbying for the drug envisioned a future where women could have the pills prescribed by their primary physician and dispensed at their local pharmacy, transforming abortion into just another part of normal health care.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/abortion-pill-mifepristone_n_5f720134c5b64e0666608a12?ri18n=true

The UK allows home use of the abortion pill — the US should do the same

The UK allows home use of the abortion pill — the US should do the same

By Susan F. Wood and Cynthia Pearson, opinion contributors
04/27/20

In late March, the United Kingdom issued new guidance authorizing physicians to provide medication abortion pills to those wishing to end their pregnancies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The change was immediately embraced by the public and by British abortion providers who know home use is a safe and effective way to experience an early abortion.

British patients who need an early abortion now consult with a provider by telephone or video link and the medication abortion pills are then delivered to the patient’s home. This is a safe, sensible way to protect pregnant women and their doctors during an epidemic. British leaders and medical experts are to be commended for recognizing that abortion is an essential health care service that can be provided safely within the constraints of physical distancing and stay-at-home orders.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494914-the-uk-allows-home-use-of-the-abortion-pill-the-us-should-do-the-same