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/

USA – Three Years Later: No Fewer Abortions, But a Lot More Harm

The Medical Impact of Dobbs

Jessica Valenti
Jun 24, 2025

It’s been three years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, splitting the country into two Americas—one where abortion is still legal, and another a worsening reproductive police state.

…To give you all a bird’s-eye view of what America looks like under abortion bans, I’ve outlined three areas of impact: Medical, Legal, and Cultural. I’m sharing an analysis of the Medical Impact today, Legal tomorrow, and Cultural on Thursday. At the end of the week, I’ll share a link that contains all three sections.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/three-years-later-no-fewer-abortions

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

USA – Inside the legal fight over the telehealth clinics that help women defy abortion bans

Every month, thousands of women evade abortion bans in their home states by turning to telehealth clinics willing to send them pregnancy-ending drugs through the mail

By MICHAEL HILL and SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press
June 12, 2025

Every month, thousands of women thwart abortion bans in their home states by turning to telehealth clinics willing to prescribe pregnancy-ending drugs online and ship them anywhere in the country.

Whether this is legal, though, is a matter of debate. Two legal cases involving a New York doctor could wind up testing the shield laws some states have passed to protect telehealth providers who ship abortion pills nationwide.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/inside-legal-fight-telehealth-clinics-women-defy-abortion-122763768

USA – Is the ‘tech bro-ification’ of abortion here?

Repro workers and tech experts reveal startling gaps between the promises offered by abortion technologies and the realities facing abortion-seekers and support workers

by Nicole Froio and Jade Jasmine Hurley
June 11th, 2025

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion tech has emerged as a potential solution for an increasingly prohibitive reproductive rights landscape…

This exclusive Prism investigation delves into the role of tech in reproductive health care, finding gaps in how abortion workers are served by tech initiatives, a clash between funding abortion tech and industry layoffs, and tension in how best to address the changing legal landscape for abortion. Interviews with a dozen reproductive health workers, tech specialists, abortion fund staff, and reproductive rights advocates further revealed a lack of investment in backend tools for abortion support workers navigating a progressively underfunded field.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2025/06/11/abortion-tech-repro-workers/

11.06.2025