Pinned
Abbie VanSickle
Reporting on the Supreme Court
The case centered on mifepristone, a drug long approved by the F.D.A. Here’s the latest.
The Supreme Court on Thursday maintained access to a widely available abortion pill, rejecting a bid from a group of anti-abortion organizations and doctors to unravel the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the pill. In a unanimous decision, written by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, the court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the F.D.A.’s actions.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the groups could instead seek greater regulatory or legislative restrictions on the drug, mifepristone, and noted that doctors who oppose abortion were shielded by so-called conscience protections in federal law, which mean they were not required to provide treatment that would “violate the doctors’ religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
Here’s what to know:
The case involved access: The challenge before the court centered on changes the F.D.A. put in place in 2016 and 2021, broadening distribution of the pill by easing patients’ ability to receive it through telemedicine and mail. But the decision did not rule out the possibility that other plaintiffs — notably states — may be able to pursue challenges to the availability of mifepristone, which is used in a majority of abortions in the country. Here’s a look at what’s next in the fight over the pill.
Supporters relieved, but wary: Abortion rights advocates were pleased by the decision but cautioned that it merely maintained the status quo — including in 14 states with near-total abortion bans. “The anti-abortion movement sees how critical abortion pills are in this post-Roe world, and they are hellbent on cutting off access,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. Even as they celebrated, abortion rights supporters warned of the risks ahead.
The case may not be over: Three Republican-led states — Missouri, Idaho and Kansas — were able to intervene as plaintiffs at the lower court level and might try to revive the case. Erin Hawley, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom who argued to restrict the pill, stressed that the court ruled only on the standing of her clients. “They didn’t get to the merits,” she said. “Those merits will hopefully be at issue later on as the states may move forward.” Abortion opponents vowed that they’ll be back.
An issue still on the docket: When the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it indicated that it was getting out of the abortion business, and Thursday’s decision vindicated the conservative majority’s promise it was ceding the issue “to the people and their elected representatives.” But the court will soon decide another major abortion case — about whether emergency rooms in hospitals are required to provide abortions in urgent situations, like if a woman’s life is in jeopardy — that resulted from the clash between federal rules and tightened state restrictions.
The challenge originated in Texas: An umbrella group of anti-abortion medical organizations, along with several doctors, challenged the F.D.A.’s longstanding approval of mifepristone. In the fall of 2022 they filed a lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, a city in the Panhandle where a single federal judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, heard all new civil cases.
The safety of the pill: The groups — citing five studies, including two that were later retracted — questioned the safety of mifepristone, which was approved by the F.D.A. more than two decades ago. Their claim contradicted a large scientific record on the safety of mifepristone and another abortion medication, misoprostol. Read how studies have shown they’re safe.
Pam Belluck, Elizabeth Dias, Adam Liptak and Kate Zernike contributed reporting.
June 13, 2024, 3:28 p.m. ET
Abbie VanSickle
Reporting on the Supreme Court
The page where we keep track of the term’s decisions shows the justices have quite a few major decisions left to go, including on emergency abortions, whether former President Trump is immune from prosecution and whether cities can punish homeless people for sleeping in public spaces when there’s no other available shelter. Usually the court aims to rule on all its cases by the end of June.
June 13, 2024, 2:16 p.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
Abortion rights groups celebrate the win, but fear ‘we are far from out of the woods.’
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Medical groups and supporters of abortion rights hailed the Supreme Court’s rejection of the challenge to medication abortion, but with a heavy dose of caution.
“We are far from out of the woods,” said Cecile Richards, a former president of Planned Parenthood and now a leader of American Bridge, a group aligned with Democrats.
While the court on Thursday threw out the challenge from the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, attorneys general in three Republican-led states — Idaho, Missouri, and Kansas — are leading similar challenges that are likely to end up before the court.
And while the decision means that medication abortion will continue to be available at some pharmacies and by mail in states where abortion is legal, it does not change the fact that the pills remain illegal in the 14 states that ban abortion.
“Unfortunately, the attacks on abortion pills will not stop here — the anti-abortion movement sees how critical abortion pills are in this post-Roe world, and they are hellbent on cutting off access,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “In the end, this ruling is not a ‘win’ for abortion — it just maintains the status quo, which is a dire public health crisis.”
Abortion rights supporters argued that the challenge should never have ended up before the high court, because it was based on what many described as “junk science.” Two of the studies that anti-abortion groups had submitted to the court arguing that pills caused medical harm were retracted by medical journals.
Abortion rights and leading medical groups argue that the pills are “safer than Tylenol.”
“Decades of clinical research have proven mifepristone to be safe and effective, and its strong track record of millions of patient uses confirms that data,” Dr. Stella Dantas, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement. “As the unanimous decision from the court makes clear in no uncertain terms, the people who brought this case were driven solely by a desire to impose their views on others and make it harder for patients to access safe, effective abortion care when they need it.”
Democratic leaders urged voters to stay energized to protect abortion rights, an issue that has driven gains for the party since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. In a call with reporters, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, President Biden’s campaign manager, noted that the challenge to the abortion pills happened because of that decision by the court, which removed federal protections for abortion, and that the court overturned Roe v. Wade only because former President Donald J. Trump appointed three conservative justices.
She and Mini Timmaraju, the president of Reproductive Freedom for All, noted that Project 2025, drafted by groups supporting Mr. Trump, included a plan for him to direct the Food and Drug Administration to remove its approval of abortion pills. Trump allies are also pushing the revival of the Comstock Act, a 19th century anti-vice law, to prohibit mailing the pills even in states that allow abortion.
“We are going to be reminding Americans of all that’s at stake for reproductive freedom not just today, but on the debate stage — and every single day leading up to the election,” Ms. Chavez Rodriguez said. The campaign is planning abortion rights rallies on the anniversary of the court’s decision overturning Roe on June 24, which is three days before President Biden and Mr. Trump meet for their first debate before November’s election.
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June 13, 2024, 1:31 p.m. ET
Elizabeth Dias
Reporting on abortion
Anti-abortion activists press ahead after the loss: ‘We’ll be back.’
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Anti-abortion stalwarts expressed widespread disappointment over the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold access to a widely available abortion pill, even as they vowed that their fight was far from over.
“We still have work to do,” said Erin Hawley, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom who argued the case. “A.D.F. is encouraged and hopeful that the F.D.A. will be held to account.”
She expressed hope that the court left room for legal action to continue for three states — Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri. In the long arc of anti-abortion activism, court losses historically can become victories as the lawyers and activists adapt their strategies and hone their arguments. Future challenges could consider alternative standing arguments, Ms. Hawley said.
“We stand with our allies, Attorneys General Raúl Labrador, Kris Kobach and Andrew Bailey, fighting to hold government bureaucrats accountable for betraying women and children,” Katie Daniel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement, referring to Republican attorneys general in those states.
Activists continued to push their message, dismissed by mainstream scientists, that the abortion pill is harmful to women. Some, like Students for Life, attempted to pivot toward future unconventional legal arguments, like arguing against abortion on environmental grounds.
“The Biden Administration allowed distribution of Chemical Abortion Pills in a way that exposes women to injury, infertility, and death, as well as empowers abusers and created abortion water pollution,” Kristan Hawkins, the group’s president, said in a statement. “We’ll be back.”
Their eyes are also fixed on a remaining case about whether hospital emergency rooms are required to provide abortions in urgent situations, like if a woman’s life is in jeopardy. The Supreme Court is expected to decide that case this term.
June 13, 2024, 1:15 p.m. ET
Pam Belluck
Reporting on the intersection of policy and health
Major medical groups praised the ruling. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement that it was relieved to know that “patients and clinicians across the country will continue to have access to mifepristone for medication abortion and miscarriage management.”
June 13, 2024, 1:15 p.m. ET
Pam Belluck
Reporting on the intersection of policy and health
The president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, citing an association between restricted access to safe and legal abortion and higher rates of maternal morbidity and mortality, said the A.M.A. would continue to support access to “safe and effective reproductive health care against the ongoing threats of interference in the practice of medicine.”
June 13, 2024, 1:11 p.m. ET
Pam Belluck
Reporting on the intersection of policy and health
The case is likely to be revived with three states as plaintiffs.
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The Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday to dismissing one effort to curtail access to abortion pills did not eliminate the possibility that other plaintiffs would continue to mount challenges to the medication that is used in a majority of abortions in the country.
The lawsuit before the Supreme Court was rejected because the justices unanimously ruled that the plaintiffs — a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations — did not have standing to sue because they could not show they had been harmed by the availability of abortion pills.
But the case is likely to be revived with different plaintiffs: three Republican-led states that months ago petitioned successfully to join the case at the lower court level.
Late last year, the states — Missouri, Idaho and Kansas — were granted status to be plaintiffs by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, an appointee of President Donald J. Trump who heard the original lawsuit and who openly opposes abortion access. When the case was accepted by the Supreme Court, the justices denied the three states’ request to intervene as plaintiffs at that level.
But anti-abortion groups say the three states will likely now return to the district court and resurrect the attempt to restrict access to the medication, mifepristone.
In a statement on Thursday, SBA Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group said: “The case returns to district court where the pro-life states of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri are seeking to take up the challenge based on harms suffered by women in their states.”
Questions of legal standing would be different for the states than they were for the anti-abortion doctors and medical groups, who claimed that they were injured by occasionally having to treat women who came to emergency rooms after taking abortion pills. The states would say they have been harmed because the federal government’s regulations allowing access to mifepristone have flouted state restrictions on abortion access.
“I would expect the litigation to continue with those states raising different standing arguments than made by our doctors,” Erin Hawley, a lawyer who represented the anti-abortion medical plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, said Thursday.
The decision will also fuel efforts to restrict abortion pills in other ways. One recent example involved Louisiana classifying abortion pills as Schedule IV drugs, a category of controlled substances with some potential for abuse or dependence that includes Ambien, Valium and Xanax, among others. The categorization is contrary to medical evidence, and because Louisiana already bans most abortions, abortion rights activists and legal scholars said that in practice, the measure might not prevent many abortions among Louisiana women.
But on a political level, the new law in Louisiana supports the claim by critics that abortion pills are dangerous. And abortion-rights supporters say that such laws can create confusion among patients about what access is available to them, which might deter some from seeking abortions.
On the abortion rights side, the Supreme Court decision will likely embolden efforts to provide abortion access for women in the states with bans and restrictions. These include telemedicine abortion services, which continue to grow and have helped make medication the method used for nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States.
There will also likely be greater use of shield laws, which allow doctors and abortion providers in states where it is legal to prescribe and mail pills to women in states with bans and restrictions, without requiring the women to travel out of state. Such laws have been enacted in seven states so far.
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June 13, 2024, 1:09 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Donald J. Trump had suggested in April to Time Magazine that he had “pretty strong views” on how a second administration would regulate the abortion pill mifepristone and that a plan would come in a matter of days. But that plan never came, and a spokeswoman last month suggested Trump was waiting for a Supreme Court ruling in a case related to mifepristone access. “The Supreme Court has unanimously decided 9-0. The matter is settled,” said Danielle Alvarez, a Trump spokeswoman.
June 13, 2024, 1:09 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Trump wrestled with what position to take after the Supreme Court, whose conservative supermajority he appointed, overturned the Roe v. Wade landmark abortion-rights case. Several weeks ago, he said it was up to states to set their own policies.
June 13, 2024, 12:53 p.m. ET
Lisa Lerer
Reporting on abortion
Status quo ruling may help Republicans minimize a political disadvantage.
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The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold access to a widely available abortion pill frustrated antiabortion activists. But it allowed Republicans to dodge a potentially toxic issue in the midst of a tight presidential race.
Medication abortion remains broadly popular: A series of surveys have found that a majority of Americans support access to medication abortion, though the public is split over whether it should be available without a prescription.
A ruling limiting access to the medication would have given Democrats another way to hammer their opponents on an issue that’s become politically damaging for Republican politicians.
Since the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republican candidates have struggled to reconcile their party’s decades-old opposition to abortion rights with the issue’s shifting political reality.
Donald Trump has notably refused to state his position on abortion medication, promising in April to release a policy on the issue “over the next week.” His campaign did not immediately comment on the ruling.
On a call with reporters, supporters of President Biden’s campaign said Mr. Trump would impose a national ban on medication abortion through executive action, pointing to policy plans released by his allies that would reverse the F.D.A.’s approval of the drug. Aides said that Mr. Biden plans to address the issue at the first presidential debate, scheduled for later this month, contrasting his support for abortion rights with Mr. Trump’s position that the policy should be left for states to decide.
“Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to ban medication abortion nationwide,” said Mini Timmaraju, the chief executive of Reproductive Freedom for All, an abortion rights organization. She blamed the former president — who appointed three of the court’s conservative justices — for overturning Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to abortion, in 2022.
The ruling is unlikely to end efforts by the antiabortion movement to restrict abortion medication. Missouri, Kansas and Idaho, all states with Republican attorneys general, remain parties in the lower court case and could try to revive the litigation as new plaintiffs.
June 13, 2024, 12:22 p.m. ET
Eileen Sullivan
Reporting on the Justice Department
The attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, said he was gratified by the Supreme Court’s decision. “The Department of Justice is committed to protecting reproductive freedom. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to protect women’s access to mifepristone and other lawful reproductive care,” he said in a statement.
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June 13, 2024, 12:22 p.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
The company that makes generic mifepristone, GenBioPro, said it expected that “politically motivated attacks” on the drug would continue. “Mifepristone is safe, effective, and essential health care,” Evan Masingill, the chief executive of GenBioPro, said in a statement. “We remain committed to lawfully making our evidence-based, essential medications available in the United States and will continue to use all legal and regulatory tools at our disposal to protect access to mifepristone.”
June 13, 2024, 12:19 p.m. ET
Christina Jewett
Reporting on the Food and Drug Administration
The pharmaceutical industry is familiar with lawsuits against federal officials over policies it views as too restrictive. But it regarded this challenge over the abortion pill as potentially destabilizing, since companies rely on F.D.A. approval decisions to be final. Jim Stansel, the general counsel of the pharmaceutical lobby PhRMA, issued a statement to that effect: “We are pleased to see today’s decision from the U.S. Supreme Court which helps provide innovative biopharmaceutical companies the certainty needed to bring future medicines to patients.”
June 13, 2024, 12:09 p.m. ET
Adam Liptak
Reporting on the Supreme Court
The ruling has nothing to do with the pills’ safety or morality.
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The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision ensuring access to an abortion pill took no position on its safety or morality. Instead, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the court, focused entirely on standing. That is the legal doctrine that requires plaintiffs to show that they have suffered direct and concrete injuries in order to sue.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, once succinctly summarized the standing doctrine, saying it requires plaintiffs to answer this question: “What’s it to you?”
The plaintiffs in the case, doctors and medical associations who oppose abortion, had no good answer to that question, Justice Kavanaugh wrote.
Their main theory was that there was a statistical possibility that some doctors may at some point work in an emergency room and have to treat patients suffering from complications after taking the pill, subjecting the doctors to “enormous stress and pressure” and making them choose between their consciences and their professional obligations.
Justice Kavanaugh rejected that reasoning. “The plaintiff doctors and medical associations are unregulated parties who seek to challenge F.DA.’s regulation of others,” he wrote.
“Specifically, F.D.A.’s regulations apply to doctors prescribing mifepristone and to pregnant women taking mifepristone,” he wrote. “But the plaintiff doctors and medical associations do not prescribe or use mifepristone. And F.D.A. has not required the plaintiffs to do anything or to refrain from doing anything.”
It was significant, he wrote, that so-called conscience protections in federal law ensured that the plaintiffs never have to perform abortions or deal with possible complications from them.
The standing doctrine can mean that some legal questions never get answered in federal court, Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “Some issues,” he wrote, “may be left to the political and democratic processes.”
There are other avenues to try to limit the availability of the pills, he added.
“Citizens and doctors who object to what the law allows others to do may always take their concerns to the executive and legislative branches and seek greater regulatory or legislative restrictions on certain activities,” he wrote. That statement echoed a sentiment in the court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which said the issue of abortion should be left to the elected branches.
Standing is a neutral legal principle that applies to the right and left alike, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in an influential 1993 law review article while he was a lawyer in private practice.
“It restricts the right of conservative public interest groups to challenge liberal agency action or inaction,” he wrote, “just as it restricts the right of liberal public interest groups to challenge conservative agency action or inaction.”
Walter Dellinger, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, once said a rigorous approach to standing was consistent with Chief Justice Roberts’s statement at his confirmation hearings that judges should aspire to be umpires, whose only job is to call balls and strikes.
“Before any judge begins calling balls and strikes,” Mr. Dellinger said, “he must first make sure the batter at the plate is an actual player and not just a fan who ran on the field.”
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June 13, 2024, 12:04 p.m. ET
Lisa Lerer
Reporting on abortion
The Biden campaign is arguing that the ruling is not enough to protect access to abortion medication if Donald J. Trump wins a second term, saying his administration would move to enforce new restrictions through executive action. “Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to ban medication abortion nationwide,” said Mini Timmaraju, the president of Reproductive Freedom for All, on a press call hosted by the campaign.
June 13, 2024, 12:02 p.m. ET
Pam Belluck
Reporting on the intersection of policy and health
Nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Étienne-Émile Baulieu came up with an idea for an “unpregnancy pill” that he thought would transform reproductive health care, allowing women to avoid surgery, act earlier and carry out their decisions in private. Read more about his eventful life, including his teenage days in the French Resistance.
June 13, 2024, 11:52 a.m. ET
Elizabeth Dias
Reporting on abortion
Erin Hawley, the Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer who argued to restrict the pill, stressed that the Supreme Court ruled only on the standing of her clients, while noting that three states — Idaho, Kansas and Missouri — have also mounted challenges. “They didn’t get to the merits,” she said on a call with reporters. “Those merits will hopefully be at issue later on as the states may move forward.”
June 13, 2024, 11:42 a.m. ET
Christina Jewett
Reporting on the Food and Drug Administration
Legal scholars had feared that a ruling invalidating the approval of mifepristone could undercut the F.D.A.’s authority in deciding which medications are safe and effective. This decision, for now, puts those fears to rest.
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June 13, 2024, 11:28 a.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
It was an epic fight to make abortion pills legal in the United States in the first place. That fight was led by women’s rights groups, because drug companies were afraid of opposition from anti-abortion groups. Much of the effort was thanks to Peg Yorkin, a feminist leader who was early on dismissed as a “Hollywood wife.” You can read about her here.
June 13, 2024, 11:20 a.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
Mifepristone is the drug formerly known as RU-486, first legalized in France in 1988. With anti-abortion groups in the United States fiercely opposing the efforts of women’s rights groups to bring the pills to the United States, it took 12 more years — until 2000 — for the F.D.A. to approve the use of the pills in this country.
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June 13, 2024, 11:04 a.m. ET
Elizabeth Dias
Reporting on abortion
There is still another major abortion case that the Supreme Court has not yet decided. That one is about whether emergency rooms in hospitals are required to provide abortions in urgent situations, like if a woman’s life is in jeopardy.
June 13, 2024, 11:00 a.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
Mifepristone -- the first pill taken in the two-drug medication abortion regimen -- is approved by the F.D.A. for use through 10 weeks of pregnancy. But physicians and other abortion providers in the United States can legally use medical discretion to prescribe it through 12 weeks of pregnancy, the time frame recommended by the World Health Organization, since there is scientific evidence that abortion pills are safe within that time frame. (An earlier version of this update misstated the time period mifepristone can be used.)
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June 13, 2024, 11:00 a.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, noted that the decision does not rule out future challenges. She added that states were continuing to make medication abortion harder to get; Lousiana recently criminalized possession of abortion pills. “I know from years of experience that women will do anything to end a pregnancy that they don’t want, and I fear that what the Supreme Court is doing, and anti-abortion politicians, they’re just making it more difficult, more costly, and threatening women’s health and their lives,” she said.
June 13, 2024, 10:55 a.m. ET
Pam Belluck
Reporting on the intersection of policy and health
The decision will likely further galvanize efforts to provide access to abortion to women in states with bans or severe restrictions. Among the most powerful efforts has been shield laws, enacted so far in seven states that support abortion rights, which allow doctors and other abortion providers in shield law states to prescribe and mail abortion pills to women in states with abortion bans, without the women having to travel out of their states. Currently about 8,000 women a month are being provided access to abortion this way.
June 13, 2024, 10:53 a.m. ET
Adam Liptak
Reporting on the Supreme Court
Justice Kavanaugh relies on so-called conscience protections in federal law, saying that doctors “shall not be required to provide treatment or assistance that would violate the doctors’ religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
And the Church Amendments more broadly provide that doctors shall not be required to provide treatment or assistance that would violate the doctors' religious beliefs or moral convictions. Most if not all States have conscience laws to the same effect.
June 13, 2024, 10:52 a.m. ET
Allison McCann
Out-of-state travel for abortions — either to have a procedure or obtain abortion pills — more than doubled in 2023 compared with 2019, and made up nearly a fifth of all recorded abortions. The Supreme Court decision allows the pills to remain available to patients traveling from states with bans.
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June 13, 2024, 10:49 a.m. ET
Adam Liptak
Reporting on the Supreme Court
The decision turned on standing, a doctrine grounded in the Constitution’s requirement that federal courts decide only concrete cases and controversies.
June 13, 2024, 10:49 a.m. ET
Adam Liptak
Reporting on the Supreme Court
The standing requirement can leave a gap. It means, Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “that the federal courts may never need to decide some contested legal questions.”
And the standing requirement means that the federal courts may never need to decide some contested legal questions: “Our system of government leaves many crucial decisions to the political processes," where democratic debate can occur and a wide variety of interests and views can be weighed.
June 13, 2024, 10:47 a.m. ET
Pam Belluck
Reporting on the intersection of policy and health
The decision will fuel efforts on the anti-abortion side to restrict abortion pills in other ways. One recent example involved Louisiana classifying abortion pills as Schedule IV drugs, a category that suggested they were dangerous or addictive substances, contrary to medical evidence.
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June 13, 2024, 10:46 a.m. ET
Elizabeth Dias
Reporting on abortion
Erin Hawley, a lawyer at the Alliance Defending Freedom and wife of Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, was the lawyer who argued against the abortion pill. She represents the ideals of womanhood many in the anti-abortion and conservative Christian movement seek to elevate.
June 13, 2024, 10:46 a.m. ET
Kate Zernike
Reporting on abortion
Even before the court’s decision in Dobbs allowed states to ban abortion, anti-abortion groups were pushing red states to restrict abortion pills, aware that they could become a workaround if abortion were banned. Read more here.
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June 13, 2024, 10:37 a.m. ET
Amy Schoenfeld Walker
Yes, abortion pills are safe. Here’s what studies have shown.
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The heart of the case against the abortion pill mifepristone is a claim that the pill is dangerous. Anti-abortion groups wrote in their complaint that the pill, taken with the abortion medication misoprostol, “causes significant injuries and harms to pregnant women and girls.”
Their claim is based on five studies, including two that a publisher retracted in February for using incorrect factual assumptions and misleading data presentation. Two other cited studies looked at the pill’s safety outside the 12-week window typically used in the United States. An author of the fifth cited study has said his team’s work was misinterpreted by the plaintiffs.
The claim also contradicts the large scientific record on the safety of the pills. A New York Times review last year found that more than 100 scientific studies, spanning continents and decades, concluded that a regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol is a safe and effective method for patients who want to end a pregnancy in the first trimester.
“There may be a political fight here, but there’s not a lot of scientific ambiguity about the safety and effectiveness of this product,” said Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a co-director of the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness.
More recent research published provides more evidence of the pill’s safety.
Researchers found that taking abortion pills prescribed through telemedicine and received by mail is as safe and effective as when the pills are obtained by visiting a clinician. They looked at the experience of more than 6,000 patients using telemedicine abortion organizations that served 20 states and Washington D.C. The researchers conducted the study in the months after the federal government allowed abortion pills to be mailed, from April 2021 to January 2022.
More than 99 percent of patients who took the pills had no serious complications. These uncommon complications can include hospitalizations, blood transfusions or major surgeries.
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