Republicans Are Trying to Kill the Abortion Pill. They Don’t Stand a Chance

They can bring all the lawsuits they want, but abortion providers have them beat.

By Christina Cauterucci
May 18, 2026

In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the right to legal abortion. Since then, one counterintuitive trend has emerged: Even as 19 states have enacted total or near-total abortion bans, the number of abortions provided in the U.S. each year has risen.

The reason is a confluence of advances in medical, logistical, and communication technology. During the first trimester, a pregnancy can be terminated with a series of pills. Those pills can be sent through the mail, and doctors can easily prescribe them on a video call, over the phone, or through digital forms. The expansion of telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic offered a way for clinicians to get abortion medication to patients in every state once Roe v. Wade fell, even in places that outlawed abortion.

Continued; https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/05/pill-supreme-court-republican-abortion-ruling-legal-mifepristone.html

If Trump Restricts Mifepristone, Clinicians Are Ready to Pivot to Misoprostol-Only Abortions

7/7/2025
by Carrie N. Baker

For decades, clinicians relied on the gold standard of medication abortion care: a two-pill regimen. Mifepristone is taken first, followed by misoprostol 24 to 48 hours later. However, misoprostol can be used alone for abortion. Recent research on patients in the U.S. confirms that misoprostol-only abortion is not only safe and effective, but that patients respond positively to using it.

In light of the FDA’s recent decision to reopen its safety review of mifepristone—a move advocates warn may lead to new restrictions—abortion providers say they are ready to offer the misoprostol-only regimen to keep telehealth abortion available in all 50 states.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/07/trump-restricts-mifepristone-misoprostol-only-abortions/

What Are ‘Missed Period Pills,’ and How Do They Work?

Menstrual regulation—sometimes referred to as “missed period pills"—is a new front in women's battle for bodily autonomy. Here's how it works and what you need to know.

Dec 30, 2023

Cari Siestra first learned about menstrual regulation when they were working on the Myanmar-Thailand border. At the time, abortion was broadly criminalized in both countries. But if a person’s period was late, it was relatively easy to get access to pills that would induce menstruation in just a few days. In Bangladesh, where abortion is largely illegal, menstrual regulation is available up to 10 weeks after a missed period, and public health advocates routinely talk about it as a promising way to reduce maternal mortality and rates of unsafe abortion.

Menstrual regulation isn’t completely unknown in the United States. Melissa Grant, chief operations officer and cofounder of Carafem, recalls friends who would have their periods brought back through manual vacuum aspiration in the 1980s, when early pregnancy tests weren’t as common. But in recent years, it hasn’t been a widespread option, and for a while, Siestra wasn’t sure if there was a place for menstrual regulation in the US.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/missed-period-pills-menstrual-regulation-how-it-works/

USA – Why an ulcer drug could be the last option for many abortion patients

February 24, 2023
Sarah McCammon
3-Minute Listen with Transcript

A federal judge in Texas could rule as soon as today on whether to cut off access to a key medication abortion protocol, giving lawyers until day's end to submit additional arguments. Fearing another major blow to abortion access, some providers are already considering alternatives.

At the Trust Women clinic in Wichita, Kansas, it's already been crisis mode for months. And now clinic Director Ashley Brink says the staff is bracing for another — maybe even bigger — wave of uncertainty.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159075709/abortion-drug-mifepristone-misoprotol-texas-case

If the “Abortion Pill” Gets Banned, There’s Still One Good Move

A less famous drug can also do the job.

BY CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI
FEB 13, 2023

When people refer to “the abortion pill,” they’re usually talking about mifepristone, the progesterone-inhibiting drug that was developed in France in the 1980s and approved in the U.S. in 2000. This month, a right-wing federal judge appointed by Donald Trump could outlaw that pill nationwide in response to a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion activists in Texas.

It’s an alarming possibility that underscores the recklessness of giving politicians and appointees full authority over the nation’s reproductive health: An unelected official could singlehandedly revoke the FDA’s approval of a safe, widely used medication—and the Supreme Court may be inclined to let him.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/abortion-pill-ban-texas-mifepristone-misoprostol.html

13.02.2023

Commentary

Carafem

Food and Drug Administration

Americans scramble for abortions in states that have banned it

New avenues are emerging, but logistical hassles are everywhere

By RUTH READER and BEN LEONARD
July 11, 2022

Demand for pills that end pregnancy has skyrocketed in states that have restricted abortion since the Supreme Court decision last month, and abortion clinics are reporting a rush for appointments in towns bordering those states.

Aid Access, a virtual abortion clinic based in the Netherlands, saw a 256 percent increase in people coming to its site in the 24 hours after the court’s June 24 decision.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/teleabortions-high-demand-abortion-pill-00044005

USA – To get banned abortion pills, patients turn to legally risky tactics

Mail-forwarding services and telehealth appointments from border-state parking lots circumvent state bans on FDA-approved drugs

By Christopher Rowland
July 6, 2022

Before spreading the word about how to circumvent state bans on abortion pills, Elisa Wells conducted a trial run of sorts, using dried garbanzo beans.

Wells, co-founder of the nonprofit abortion advocacy website Plan C, was testing whether commercial mail-forwarding services could serve as a link in a surreptitious supply chain from abortion-friendly states to states where abortion pills are banned.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/abortion-pills-mail-telehealth/

Inside the Effort to Promote Abortion Pills For a Post-Roe America

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS AND JAMIE DUCHARME
MAY 31, 2022

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as a leaked draft opinion suggests it may, abortion will likely be banned or severely restricted in about half of the United States. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the country will return to a world before 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court case enshrined a constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion pills, which can be ordered online and delivered by mail, have already fundamentally changed reproductive rights in America. The regimen of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, can in theory be safely taken anywhere, including in the privacy of people’s homes, eliminating the need to undergo a procedure, travel out of state, take time off work, or confront protestors outside of a clinic. In part because of this convenience, abortion pills—also known as medication abortion—are now the most common method of ending a pregnancy in the U.S.

https://time.com/6181162/abortion-pill-access-roe-v-wade/

31.05.2022

abortion pills by mail

Aid Access

Bixby Center for Global and Reproductive Health

Food and Drug Administration

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

nnovating Education in Reproductive Health

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Plan C

Repro Legal Helpline

Reproductive Health Education in Family Medicine

Roe v. Wade

self-managed abortion

social media and abortion

telemedicine abortion

More turn to abortion pills by mail, with legality uncertain

By John Hanna, Associated Press
Nov 13, 2021

TOPEKA, Kan. — Before her daughter’s birth, she spent weeks in bed. Another difficult pregnancy would be worse as she tried to care for her toddler.

Faced with that possibility, the 28-year-old Texas woman did what a growing number of people have considered: She had a friend in another state mail her the pills she needed to end her pregnancy. She took the pills, went to bed early and describes the experience as “calm” and “peaceful.”

Continued: https://www.wral.com/more-turn-to-abortion-pills-by-mail-with-legality-uncertain/19979246/

Why Some Women Might Want ‘Missed-Period Pills’

Abortion drugs administered as early as 28 days after a woman’s last period can offer comfort in uncertainty to those who want it.

By Patrick Adams
Dec. 3, 2020

The pregnancy test is one of the most ubiquitous home health care products in America. What resembled a child’s chemistry set when it first arrived on the market in 1977 is now the widely available wand. Today, dozens of different devices promise to promptly deliver what any possibly-pregnant person is assumed to want: knowledge of her status.

Now a new study suggests that for all of the ease and convenience of the at-home test, a significant number of women would prefer not to know. Given the choice, they would opt instead to take two drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to terminate a pregnancy. The first drug, mifepristone, blocks the effects of progesterone, a hormone without which the lining of the uterus begins to break down, while the second drug, misoprostol, induces contractions of the uterus that expel its contents.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/opinion/pregnancy-missed-period-pills.html