‘Mife No Matter What’: Community Abortion Providers Pledge to Continue Sharing Free Abortion Pills, Even if FDA Imposes Restrictions

Despite growing legal threats to the accessibility of abortion pills, national networks of volunteers are working to distribute the medication, discretely and without cost to patients.

Nov 4, 2025
by Carrie N. Baker

Since Roe fell, a community-led network of care has grown into a nationwide system with the promise of “mife no matter what.”

In June 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and over half of states banned or restricted abortion, grassroots activists across the country organized mutual aid groups to share free abortion pills with people living in restrictive states. Today, community providers distributing free abortion pills operate in every U.S. state and territory that bans or restricts abortion.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/11/04/free-abortion-pills-mifepristone-ban-states/

This abortion method doesn’t involve doctors — and many of them consider it safe

June 22, 2025
By Abby Wendle, Liana Simstrom
Podcast: 43-Minute Listen, with transcript

This story is an accompaniment to a three-part podcast series released by NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media.

For nearly four years, Dr. Maya Bass's commute included a monthly plane ride from Philadelphia to Oklahoma to provide abortions at a clinic there. Starting in 2018, she took these trips even though flying made her nauseous and she had to use vacation time from her regular job. Bass was motivated to fill a gap: Oklahoma — like all parts of the U.S. outside of a fraction of metropolitan areas — has long had a shortage of abortion providers.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/22/g-s1-73119/abortion-mifepristone-roe-v-wade

Crisis pregnancy center’s forms give rare insight into anti-abortion practices

The free organizations offer counseling while trying to dissuade women from having abortions. They promise to protect health data but aren’t bound by federal privacy law.

Oct. 13, 2024
by Abigail Brooks

A free family planning center in Twin Falls, Idaho, asks its visitors for sensitive, private information, including nonmedical questions about religion and financial status, according to documents obtained by NBC News.

While the Sage Women’s Center promises to protect the information of its clients, it isn’t bound by medical privacy laws and may be misleading women who are coping with unplanned pregnancies, consumer advocates say.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/crisis-pregnancy-centers-forms-privacy-abortion-rcna172566

USA – When ‘Abortion’ Wasn’t a Dirty Word

The medical term once encompassed any form of pregnancy loss, including miscarriage.

By Rachel E. Gross
Aug. 13, 2024

One morning in 2012, eight weeks into her pregnancy, Shannon Withycombe woke up bleeding: She was having a miscarriage. In the emergency room, however, no doctor or nurse uttered that word. Instead, she had to wait to read her discharge papers, which read “incomplete abortion.”

Dr. Withycombe, a medical historian at the University of New Mexico, knew the term from her research on 19th-century medical journals; it was doctorspeak for a miscarriage that had not fully exited the uterus. But it was jarring to see it on her own 21st-century medical notes.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/science/medical-history-abortion.html

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 – Alone in a bathroom:

The fear and uncertainty of a post-Roe medication abortion

By Caroline Kitchener
April 11, 2024

Angel tucked two white pills into each side of her mouth, bracing herself as they began to dissolve. Her deepest fears and anxieties took over.

Angel had wanted to talk to a doctor before she took the pills to end her pregnancy, worried about how they might interact with medication she took for her heart condition. But in her home state of Oklahoma, where almost all abortions are banned, that wasn’t an option.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/abortion-pill-experience-stories/

USA – Need a Safe, Private Abortion? Ask Charley.

“The goal of Charley is to provide people with easy-to-access information about how to find abortion care in every state—even states with restrictions.”

9/12/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

On Tuesday, Sept. 12, reproductive health experts launched a new online chatbot named Charley to help abortion seekers in all 50 states find quick, accurate and confidential abortion information, tailored to their individual needs and circumstances.

Available in English and Spanish, Charley explains different abortion methods (from procedural abortion to abortion with pills) and how to access abortion (from in-clinic to telemedicine to self-sourced pills).

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/12/need-an-abortion-charley-chatbot-private-anonymous-secure/

12.09.2023

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

Plan C

Tom Subak

One Woman’s Story Of Self-Managing Her Abortion In An Anti-Choice State

Managing your own abortion is not a crime in Ohio, but a politically motivated prosecutor might believe Julia should be punished for what she did.

By Alanna Vagianos
Aug 7, 2023

SOMEWHERE IN OHIO — It’s a pretty short drive to the polling site from the cabin where Julia has been self-managing her abortion. Julia took the last of her abortion pills the day before, which she believes have ended her unwanted pregnancy. She still has some minor cramping and is tired from the whole ordeal, but she feels reasonably OK — well enough to go vote on a ballot referendum that could help decide the fate of abortion rights in Ohio.

Issue 1, a ballot initiative to raise the threshold to alter the state constitution from a simple majority — the standard in Ohio for over a century — to 60%, is a preemptive attempt to block a pro-choice constitutional amendment that Ohioans will vote on in November.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-womans-story-of-self-managing-her-abortion-in-an-anti-choice-state_n_64c03e6be4b053a7009335eb

Blue-state doctors launch abortion pill pipeline into states with bans

by Caroline Kitchener, The Washington Post
July 23, 2023

The doctor starts each day with a list of addresses and a label maker.

Sitting in her basement in New York's Hudson Valley, next to her grown children's old bunk beds, she reviews the list of towns and cities she'll be mailing to that day: Baton Rouge, Tucson, Houston.

A month ago, a phone call was the only thing the doctor could offer to women in states with abortion bans who faced unexpected pregnancies. Hamstrung by the laws, she could only coach them through the process of taking abortion pills they received from overseas suppliers.

Continued: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2023/jul/23/blue-state-doctors-launch-abortion-pill-pipeline/

USA – People are using abortion medication later in their pregnancies. Here’s what that means.

The regimen is common and considered safe after 10 weeks, but the delays are cause for concern.

By Anna North
Jun 18, 2023

A patient takes one medication, mifepristone, which stops the pregnancy from developing, followed one to two days later by another medication, misoprostol, which induces contractions that empty the uterus. The regimen, approved for abortions in the US since 2000, is effective and very safe, according to physicians and researchers, with a low incidence of serious side effects, and it’s the most common method of abortion in the US. It’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the first 70 days, or 10 weeks, of pregnancy, though the World Health Organization recommends medication abortion for up to 12 weeks.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, however, nothing about abortion is simple anymore. With near-total abortion bans in place in more than a dozen states and gestational limits in several others, the procedure is growing harder to access by the day. Meanwhile, a federal court case is casting further doubt on the future of mifepristone’s availability in the US.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/23755658/abortion-pill-second-trimester-mifepristone-misoprostol