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 – Drugmaker files emergency appeal to restore abortion pill access

A federal appeals court shut off telehealth access Friday.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
May 2, 2026

A company that makes the abortion drug mifepristone asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to hit pause on Friday’s lower court ruling that cut off telemedicine access to the pills nationwide, including in states where abortion is legal.

The emergency appeal asks the high court to temporarily restore a federal policy that allows the pills to be prescribed online and delivered by mail, arguing that failing to do so would cause “immediate chaos” and leave patients around the country in limbo.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/02/abortion-pill-telehealth-mifepristone-supreme-court-00903861

U.S. Teens Avoid Coercive Parental Involvement Laws by Using Telehealth Abortion Services

A new study shows teens in states with parental involvement laws are increasingly seeking abortion pills online to avoid judges, delays and unsafe alternatives.

March 10, 2026
by Carrie N. Baker and Shelby Hastings

The majority of U.S. teenagers live in states that require parental involvement in abortion healthcare decision-making. If parents are unavailable, or teens under 18 do not want to involve their parents, they must go to court and convince a judge that they are mature enough to decide on their own or that the abortion is in their best interest. To avoid this invasive and burdensome process, resourceful teens are now turning to abortion care from telehealth providers located outside their restrictive states, as documented by new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/03/10/teens-abortion-pills-ban-states/

USA – Abortion clinics are closing, even in states that have become key access points

There are about a dozen fewer brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in the US than there were two years ago, according to a new report

By Deidre McPhillips
Feb 18, 2026

Dozens of abortion clinics closed in the US after the Supreme Court Dobbs decision revoked the federal right to an abortion in June 2022 — mostly in states that enacted bans. But the churn has continued, leaving even states with some of the most protective abortion policies to do more with less.

There were 753 brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in the US at the end of 2025, according to a new report by the Guttmacher Institute — 54 fewer than in 2020, including a net loss of 12 abortion clinics since March 2024.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/18/health/abortion-clinic-closures-guttmacher

New Book Outlines Medication Abortion’s Origins—From ‘Chance’ Discovery to Decades of Clinical Tests and Global Approval

“Just Pills” author Rebecca Kelliher also discusses how the U.S. stacks up against Latin America on abortion rights, and what we can learn from the region’s fight for reproductive justice.

Dec 16, 2025
Catesby Holmes

The abortion drug mifepristone has transformed abortion care in the U.S. since its approval by the Food and Drug Administration 25 years ago.

…Journalist Rebecca Kelliher’s recent book, Just Pills, traces the history of abortion medications, starting with misoprostol’s whispered origins among Brazilian women in the 1980s as a “pill that makes your period back” through decades of clinical trials and widespread use in almost 100 countries.

Rewire News Group spoke with Kelliher about abortion politics, the disinformation that swirls around reproductive rights, and inspiration from abroad.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2025/12/16/mifepristone-just-pills-rebecca-kelliher-book/

A Global Telehealth First: Women Help Women Begins Producing Abortion Pill Combipack

Dec 14, 2025
by Carrie N. Baker, Ms. Magazine

The feminist telehealth provider is cutting out pharmaceutical middlemen to make abortion safer, simpler and more accessible across borders.

Across much of the world, medical providers do not offer abortion because this care is criminalized, stigmatized or unfunded. As a result, an increasing number of women are accessing abortion pills outside of the formal medical system. At the center of this shift is Women Help Women, a global telehealth abortion service that supports self-managed abortion by providing abortion pills and information about how to use them, to women around the world, especially in places where abortion is restricted by law, stigma or lack of access.

Continued; https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/14/global-telehealth-women-help-women-mifepristone-misprostol-abortion-pills-combo-pack/

It Is Sacred Work’: Abortion Clinics Are Stepping Up After the Fall of Roe

Organizations across the country are ensuring people continue to have access to reproductive care.

by Eleanor J. Bader
November 25, 2025

In the first 100 days after the June 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, sixty-six health clinics in fifteen states stopped providing surgical abortions, and fourteen states enacted near-total bans on the procedure.

But then something unexpected happened. By 2024, twenty-one new facilities had opened in states where abortion was not completely banned, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Moreover, KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) reports that by 2023, 226 virtual providers—including online pharmacies, feminist health centers, and help lines—had set up shop to counsel people seeking abortion services and provide abortion medication through the mail.

Continued: https://progressive.org/latest/it-is-sacred-work-abortion-clinics-are-stepping-up-after-the-fall-of-roe-bader-20251125/

Celebrating mifepristone, a hero in modern abortion access, on its 25th anniversary in the U.S.

Though it faces new legal challenges, mifepristone may offer yet more

By Elisa Wells
Sept. 28, 2025

When the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, the abortion pill, on Sept. 28, 2000, none of us working on expanding access to reproductive health care could have imagined the future we find ourselves in 25 years later. From the fall of Roe in 2022 and the subsequent banning or restriction of abortion in 19 states, to South Carolina’s recent efforts to include some forms of birth control in its total abortion ban, access to the basic medical care and medications that allow us to control our reproductive destinies is hanging by a thread. In the midst of this reproductive health care apocalypse, mifepristone is proving itself to be a hero in the fight for abortion access.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2025/09/28/mifepristone-abortion-pill-fda-approval-25th-anniversary/

Mifepristone Has Been Proven Safe for 25 Years. It’s Under Attack Again.

Safeguarding mifepristone is not just about abortion care—it’s about defending the role of science in medicine itself.

9/26/2025
by Kiki Freedman, Ms. Magazine

Twenty-five years ago, the Food and Drug Administration made a decision that changed the course of reproductive health in America. By approving mifepristone (the first pill in the two-step medication abortion regimen), the agency gave people access to one of the safest, most effective and most studied medications in modern medicine.

Since then, more than 7.5 million Americans have relied on it to end pregnancies safely and with dignity. Its safety record is stronger than many drugs we take without question, including penicillin. What was once a breakthrough is now a cornerstone of healthcare. And at a moment when vaccines, Tylenol and even basic public health guidance are being questioned, that kind of evidence-based decision-making feels more fragile—and more essential—than ever.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/09/26/mifepristone-safe-effective-science-women-health-ru-486/

27.09.2025

Commentary

abortion pill

anti-choice anti-science

Food and Drug Administration

telemedicine abortion

USA – This Organization Took Out Pro-Abortion Newspaper Ads—in the Hometowns of the Justices Who Voted Down Roe

7/7/2025
by Ava Slocum

Last month marked the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision—the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade, unraveling nearly 50 years of legal protection for abortion in the U.S. However, abortion is still an option—even in states with bans—thanks to medication abortion, which can be sent through the mail.

To celebrate the nationwide accessibility of abortion pills—even three years after Dobbs—Mayday Health took out a series of cheeky ads in the hometown newspapers of each of the five Supreme Court justices who struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022: Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/07/abortion-pills-newspaper-ads-hometown-supreme-court-justices-roe-v-wade/