Ruvani Jayaweera

Amid pending court cases and ballot initiatives, journalistic coverage of medication abortion has never been more crucial. This piece aims to help inform the narrative with scientific evidence.

by Naseem S. Miller
November 1, 2023

Access to mifepristone, a medication that’s used for the safe termination of early pregnancy, hangs in the balance while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take up a case that could determine the legal future of the abortion medication.

In August, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mifepristone should not be prescribed past the seventh week of pregnancy, prescribed via telemedicine, or shipped to patients through the mail. In September, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to consider a challenge to that ruling.

Continued: https://journalistsresource.org/health/mifepristone-research-roundup/

Most women who took abortion drugs were successful even at later gestation periods, researchers reported. Many used only misoprostol, not the usual two-drug combination.

By Roni Caryn Rabin
July 6, 2023

An overwhelming majority of women were able to end unwanted pregnancies with abortion medications on their own and without additional medical procedures, even if they were well beyond the first trimester, according to a report published on Thursday.

The study was based on the experiences of 264 women who were nine to 16 weeks pregnant in Argentina, Nigeria and an unnamed country in Southeast Asia where abortion is illegal. Almost half of the women took only one drug, misoprostol, instead of the standard two-drug regimen, mifepristone and misoprostol.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/health/abortion-misoprostol.html

Abortion pill mifepristone: An explainer and research roundup about its history, safety and future

Misoprostol Alone Safely Ends Pregnancies After 10 Weeks, Study Suggests