Supreme Court restores access to abortion pill mifepristone through telehealth, mail and pharmacies

By MARK SHERMAN and GEOFF MULVIHILL
May 4, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday restored broad access to the abortion pill mifepristone, blocking a lower-court ruling that had threatened to upend one of the main ways abortions are provided across the nation.

The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito temporarily allows women seeking abortions to obtain the pill at pharmacies or through the mail, without an in-person visit to a doctor.
Those practices had been permitted for several years until a federal appeals court imposed new restrictions last week.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-pills-mifepristone-supreme-court-louisiana-0533e83d67148fdfec53b1d0d30c1e8a

USA – Inside a medical practice sending abortion pills to states where they’re banned

August 7, 2024
Elissa Nadworny

The packages, no bigger than a hardcover book, line the walls of the nondescript office near Boston. It's not an Etsy retailer or a Poshmark seller or, as the nearby post office workers believe, a thriving jewelry business.

These boxes contain abortion pills.

"Welcome to modern abortion care," says Angel Foster, as she holds up a box for mailing. Foster, who has an M.D. degree, leads operations at what's known as the MAP, a Massachusetts telehealth provider sending pills to people who live in states that ban or restrict abortion.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2024/08/06/nx-s1-5037750/abortion-pills-bans-telehealth-mail-mifepristone-misoprostol

The Abortion Pill Underground

Since Roe was overturned, thousands of people in red states have found a way to get an abortion—often thanks to providers operating at the edge of the law.

AMY LITTLEFIELD
May 7, 2024

When Kay found out she was pregnant at the end of last year, she knew three things clearly. “I was poor and I had an unwanted pregnancy and knew I couldn’t afford a standard abortion for hundreds of dollars,” she told me. A 29-year-old student already raising one child, Kay lives in Texas, where abortion is banned. The nearest clinic she could find was at least a 12-hour drive away. But Kay thought there might be another option. “I went to Google and started searching if it was possible somehow to receive abortion pills through the Internet.”

It was not only possible; it was much easier and more affordable than Kay had expected. She found online services that offered to ship the same medications that were available in clinics right to her doorstep in Texas for $150 or, if she couldn’t afford that, for free. It seemed so simple that Kay thought it might be a scam. “I was scared I would wait for the pills and they wouldn’t work when I got them,” she said.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/telehealth-abortion-shield-laws/

07.05.2024

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

abortion funds

abortion pills

abortion pills by mail

Abuzz

Aid Access

Center for Reproductive Rights

Choices Women’s Medical Center

in-person requirement

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

National Network of Abortion Funds

self-managed abortion

shield laws

Susan Yanow

telemedicine abortion

USA – How a network of abortion pill providers works together in the wake of new threats

Groups such as Aid Access, Hey Jane and Just the Pill stay in close contact to help women seeking abortions in states with bans.

April 7, 2024
By Abigail Brooks and Dasha Burns

When the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March about restricting access to the abortion drug mifepristone, Elisa Wells, co-founder and co-director of Plan C, was ready. Plan C, an information resource that connects women to abortion pill providers, almost immediately saw a spike in searches for the medication.

With Florida’s Supreme Court paving the way for the state’s six-week abortion ban, Wells says she’s expecting even more search activity and more creative thinking from providers.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/network-abortion-pill-providers-works-together-wake-new-threats-rcna146678

U.S. Supreme Court Challenge to Abortion Pills Could Boost Illegal Imports

Safeguarding access to pills from online foreign distributors may become a flashpoint in the reproductive care battle

by Chloe Searchinger
April 5, 2024

After hearing oral arguments last week, the Supreme Court appeared dubious of the plaintiff's legal challenge to the abortion pill in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Hippocratic Alliance of Medicine, the latest major abortion case since Dobbs v. Jackson overturned the constitutional guarantee to an abortion. Even though this outlook could lead pro-choice activists to breathe a minor sigh of relief and temporarily quell Big Pharma's fear over other challenges to FDA approvals, one indirect consequence regardless of the case outcome is the growing American reliance on imported abortion pills from overseas.

This manner of accessing abortion has been increasing in popularity since Dobbs, and safeguarding the provision of these pills from unapproved foreign distributors could soon become a flashpoint in the American battle over reproductive care, given that these imports are illegal because they operate outside the formal U.S. health-care system and beyond FDA oversight.

Continued: https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/us-supreme-court-challenge-abortion-pills-could-boost-illegal-imports

Galvanized by Dobbs, more doctors are distributing abortion pills by mail

A new president could reverse an FDA rule change that made it possible.

By RUTH READER
09/21/2022

Doctors at online and brick and mortar primary care companies are slowly starting to prescribe medication abortion pills via telemedicine in states where it’s still legal following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision ending the constitutional right to the procedure.

The FDA has yet to update its rules to make way for large retail pharmacies to dispense medication abortion, limiting how patients can get pills. In the meantime, these companies are leaning on two mail-order pharmacies to fill their prescriptions.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/dobbs-abortion-pills-roe-00057877

UK – Pills in the post: how Covid reopened the abortion wars

As some European countries rolled out ‘telemed’ abortion, others shut down access completely.

by Sarah Hurtes and Daniel Boffey
Wed 21 Apr 2021

Kay, 34, realised her period was late a month into Britain’s lockdown. The coronavirus death count was spiralling across the country. Covid-19 was putting the NHS under unprecedented strain and Boris Johnson had given the British people what he described as “a very simple instruction” in an address to the nation from Downing Street: “You must stay at home.”

A worrying, unsettling time, and Kay, a mother of a six-year-old girl, needed to get hold of a pregnancy test kit. She went online and, two days later, took delivery of the test, learning of a positive result via two pink lines. It was the news she had dreaded.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/21/pills-in-the-post-how-covid-reopened-the-abortion-wars

21.04.2021

Commentary

Featured

1967 Abortion Act

abortion is essential healthcare

abortion pills by mail

ACAI

access to abortion during lockdown

Agenda Europe

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Celia Herrero Medina

Christian Concern

CitizenGO

Covid-19 and abortion

Federation for Women and Family Planning

Fundacja Pro-Prawo do Życia

MSI Reproductive Choices

Royal College of Midwives

self-managed abortion

Spanish abortion clinics association

telemedicine

telemedicine abortion

USA – Medication Abortion Access Is About to Radically Change

Monday's ruling could be the first step in making medication abortion easier—and safe—to access.

Jul 15, 2020
Jessica Mason Pieklo

Medication abortion access just got a little easier and safer for patients during the COVID-19 crisis. It’s about damn time, and it should stay this way forever.

A federal judge in Maryland issued an order on Monday blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a restriction that prevents patients from accessing medication abortion without a doctor’s visit, on the grounds that it likely unduly burdens abortion rights in the middle of a pandemic.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/07/15/medication-abortion-access-is-about-to-radically-change/

USA – Amid Covid-19, a Call for M.D.s to Mail the Abortion Pill

Amid Covid-19, a Call for M.D.s to Mail the Abortion Pill
For decades, the consensus has been that F.D.A. regulations require that the abortion pill be obtained in a clinic. But that’s changing.

By Patrick Adams
May 12, 2020

Last fall, months before America’s first outbreak of the coronavirus, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, co-founders of the abortion rights advocacy group Plan C, were reaching out to doctors with a question they said was urgent:

“Would you be willing to mail the ‘abortion pills’ to women in their homes?”

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/opinion/covid-abortion-pill.html

Abortion Pills Should Be Everywhere

Abortion Pills Should Be Everywhere
I bought them online. They’re easy to get, and they’ll change everything.

By Farhad Manjoo, Opinion Columnist
Aug. 3, 2019

One afternoon about a year ago, just as the Senate began considering Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, I logged on to Day Night Healthcare, an online pharmacy based in India, and ordered a pack of abortion pills. A few hours later, I got a call from a Day Night customer-service agent with a warning. If my credit-card company called to ask about the purchase, “tell them you approve the charge, but don’t say what it’s for,” the man advised. “If they ask, say it’s gym equipment, or something like that.”

In fact, the bank never called, and in a week and a half, a small brown envelope — bearing a postmark not from India but from New Jersey — arrived in the mail.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/opinion/abortion-pill.html