Inside the Global Network of Abortion Doulas Supporting Self-Managed Care

A global infrastructure is emerging to guide people through self-managed abortions, reshaping how pregnancies are ended.

1/26/2025
by Carrie N. Baker, Ms. Magazine

As barriers to clinic-based abortion care increase, a growing number of women are self-managing their abortions: finding and using abortion pills independently of the formal medical system—usually through online abortion pill services, community networks sharing pills for free or websites selling pills.

To support self-managed abortion, feminists are creating a global network of online abortion doulas—trained companions who offer one-on-one support by phone, email and text to people using abortion pills. A leader in this effort is the organization Rouge Doulas, which runs the Rouge Abortion Doula School.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/11/26/rouge-abortion-pills-doula-support-health/

USA – Abortion providers challenge FDA’s remaining mifepristone restrictions in federal court

“It’s really important that we protect … safe access to medication abortion no matter where people live — Virginia is playing a key role in the South right now,” Whole Woman’s Health Alliance founder and president Amy Hagstrom Miller said Monday.

By: Sofia Resnick and Charlotte Rene Woods
May 19, 2025

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Abortion pills — and questions over their inherent safety — were back in federal court Monday. Unlike a lawsuit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, plaintiffs this time are not anti-abortion activists arguing medication abortion should be banned, but abortion providers arguing the remaining restrictions should be lifted to match the drug’s 25-year record of safety and efficacy.

The suit seeks to make abortion pills more accessible by removing several existing restrictions on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s mifepristone-misoprostol regimen first approved in 2000. The drug was approved under the FDA’s drug safety program called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), provisions of which have been steadily eliminated over time but not fully.

Continued: https://virginiamercury.com/2025/05/19/abortion-providers-challenge-fdas-remaining-mifepristone-restrictions-in-federal-court/

Abortion clinics in 3 states sue to protect pill access

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone

By MATTHEW PERRONE and DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press
May 8, 2023

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the abortion pill mifepristone, even as the drug is threatened by a separate Texas lawsuit winding its way through U.S. court system.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia on behalf of clinics in Virginia, Montana and Kansas, is the latest legal action over the decades-old pill, which is part of the two-drug regimen used in most U.S. abortions.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/abortion-clinics-3-states-sue-protect-pill-access-99181828

08.05.2023

News

Blue Mountain Clinic

Center for Reproductive Rights

Whole Woman’s Health Alliance

USA – Clinics offering abortions face a rise in threats, violence and legal battles

April 7, 2023
By Aaron Bolton

Thirty years ago, Blue Mountain Clinic Director Willa Craig stood in front of the sagging roof and broken windows of an abortion clinic that an arsonist had burned down early that morning in Missoula, Montana.

"This morning, Missoula, Montana, learned that there is no place in America that is safe from hateful, misguided groups," she told the crowd of reporters and onlookers.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/07/1168547810/clinics-offering-abortions-face-a-rise-in-threats-violence-and-legal-battles