The long and winding history of the war on abortion drugs

Along with the stethoscope and camembert cheese, mifepristone may be one of France’s greatest inventions. It’s one of two drugs taken for medical abortions, along with misoprostol, and has been making headlines in the US, where a Texas judge issued a ruling to ban it nationwide. FRANCE 24 takes a look at the history of these two drugs.

26/04/2023
by Lara BULLENS

Two separate rulings filed one after another in quick succession on April 7 had US abortion providers holding their breath. The first, issued by Trump-appointed federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, ordered a hold on mifepristone, one of two drugs taken for medical abortions. The second, issued by Obama-appointed federal judge Thomas O. Rice, came less than an hour later. His ruling ordered the exact opposite.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/health/20230426-the-long-and-winding-history-of-the-war-on-abortion-drugs

The Latest Attack on the Abortion Pill Is Forty Years in the Making

If a Texas lawsuit prevails, mifepristone will no longer be available anywhere in the nation, even in states where abortion is legal.

By Sue Halpern, The New Yorker
March 9, 2023

In 1987, Ms. magazine asked me to write about RU-486, a new medication that caused the uterus to expel a fertilized egg before it could gestate. It wasn’t a contraceptive, but it wasn’t what most people considered an abortion, either. At the time, anti-abortion campaigners were brandishing ultrasound images that purported to show fetuses crying out in pain as they were being surgically removed. RU-486, which was developed in France but not yet available in the United States, threatened to stymie this tactic: there would be no fetal development to flaunt. Even the president of the National Right to Life Committee acknowledged that there was little P.R. value in images of what appeared to be menstruating women. This disarming of the pro-life movement, and the drug’s seemingly benign effect, I wrote, “may serve to decimate the ranks of abortion foes.” Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the primary developer of RU-486, which is better known as mifepristone, was even more hopeful. With this drug, he declared, abortion “should more or less disappear as a concept, as a fact, as a word in the future.”

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-latest-attack-on-the-abortion-pill-is-forty-years-in-the-making

Caroline De Costa has fought for women’s health for 50 years.

Here's what's changed – and what still needs to

ABC Radio National
By Anna Kelsey-Sugg and Erica Vowles for Life Matters
Wed 12 Jan 2022

In her 50 years of delivering babies, Caroline De Costa has not only witnessed change, she's propelled it.

She's Australia's first female professor of obstetrics and gynaecology. She studied her medical degree while pregnant and as a single mother. And she was instrumental in the fight for women's reproductive rights in Australia and in Ireland, even smuggling IUDs and condoms into Dublin.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-13/caroline-de-costa-fifty-years-of-obstetrics-and-activism/100560612

12.01.2022

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21 Years After FDA Approval, Abortion Pill Is More Critical Than Ever

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the fight for access to the abortion pill has become a matter of life and death.

9/27/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER

Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the abortion pill mifepristone for distribution in the United States. As states are now passing laws to ban abortion and the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the abortion pill is what will make a post-Roe world very different from the pre-Roe world, when thousands of women died each year from illegal abortions, and many more were left permanently harmed by unsafe and illegal abortions.

Abortion pills are safe and effective, widely accessible online and easy to use. A grassroots movement led by the organization Plan C is now working to ensure that women across the country know how to get abortion pills and how to use them.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/09/27/fda-approval-abortion-pill-anniversary-medication-abortion-biden-texas-ban/

USA – Abortion Pill Effective for Treating Fibroids, But Anti-Abortion Politics Stymie Access

7/26/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

In 2000, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone for abortion during the first seven weeks of pregnancy, later extending allowable use to ten weeks in 2016. While widely known as an abortion pill, mifepristone is very effective for treating fibroids and may also be effective for treating endometriosis and depression.

Yet the drug is not available to use for these serious conditions because the FDA tightly restricts the medication due to intense anti-abortion pressure. The politicization around mifepristone has made research on its usefulness in treating these conditions difficult to conduct, preventing its development for treatments that could significantly enhance women’s health.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/07/26/mifepristone-abortion-pill-fibroids-endometriosis-depression-fda-rems-biden/

5 days later pill also to minors without prescription

For the Medicines Agency it is a "turning point for the physical and psychological health protection of adolescents"

October 11, 2020

It will no longer be necessary to have a medical prescription to dispense ulipistral acetate (EllaOne), the drug used for emergency contraception up to five days after intercourse, even to minors.

This was established by the Italian Medicines Agency Aifa with Resolution no. 998 of last 8 October.

Continued: https://www.unionesarda.it/en/articolo/news/italia/2020/10/10/pillola-dei-5-giorni-dopo-anche-alle-minorenni-senza-ricetta-137-1069260.html

11.10.2020

emergency contraception

Italian Medicine Agency Aifa

USA – The History of Medication Abortion Approval is More Relevant Than Ever

9/28/2020
by MARIE BASS

The approval of medication abortion care—20 years ago on Monday—was supposed to usher in a new era of abortion access in this country, to lessen the political and cultural stigma of abortion, to end the vitriol, quiet the noise, and give women an important new option to end an early pregnancy. This vision has yet to be realized.

Instead, with the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the vacancy on the Supreme Court, the constitutional right to abortion is under greater threat than ever before.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/09/28/the-history-of-medication-abortion-approval-is-more-relevant-than-ever/

Australia – Unique SA legal requirement adds hurdles for country women accessing abortions

By Evelyn Leckie and Georgia Roberts
Aug 8, 2020

Regional doctors in remote South Australia are joining lobbyists in Adelaide calling for abortion law reform to be pushed through Parliament urgently, saying the current laws are placing barriers to termination access, particularly for regional women.

Port Lincoln's Dr Anna Kearney is one of two GP registrars on the Eyre Peninsula who is qualified to prescribe the early medication 'abortion pill' RU486.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-08/law-adds-hurdles-for-sa-women-accessing-abortions/12536186

USA – Illegal Abortion Will Mean Abortion By Mail

Illegal Abortion Will Mean Abortion By Mail
What to expect when you’re expecting your abortifacient pill delivery

Olga Khazan
July 18, 2018

With the prospect of a more conservative Supreme Court on the horizon, some progressive women have begun to fear what will happen if Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion, is overturned. Some of these prophecies have centered on a popular meme in the pro-choice community: The coat hanger.

During a recent rally, New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon held up a wire coat hanger as a warning that we should not return to the previous generation’s means of obtaining illicit abortions. And Representative Lois Frankel, a Democrat from Florida, banged a coat hanger on the table at a briefing while discussing the latest Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/07/after-abortion-is-illegal/565430/

Australia – Greens push for legal at-home abortions for Canberra women

Greens push for legal at-home abortions for Canberra women

By Elise Scott
Updated Sun

The ACT Greens are pushing for women in Canberra to be able to order the abortion pill over the phone or through their GP to have at-home medical abortions.

It is a service available to women in most of the country, but in the ACT abortions can only be carried out at the territory's abortion clinic or the Canberra Hospital.

Continued: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-19/greens-to-bring-legislation-for-at-home-abortions/9561748