Women will be able to take the so-called abortion pill later in a pregnancy and with fewer doctor visits under a new federal label for the drug that undermines several state laws aimed at restricting medical abortions.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notified the manufacturer of the drug Mifeprex in a letter on Tuesday that the drug is safe and effective for terminating a pregnancy in accordance with the new label. Also known as mifepristone or the abortion pill, the drug manufactured by Danco Laboratories is used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, to end a pregnancy.
While abortion providers in most states already are using the protocol outlined in the new label, laws in effect in Ohio, North Dakota and Texas prohibited “off-label” uses of the drug and mandated abortion providers adhere to the older protocol approved in 2000. Similar laws in Arkansas and Oklahoma have been on hold pending legal challenges, while a county judge in Arizona ruled in October that state’s law was unconstitutional.
Under the new label, a smaller dose of mifepristone can be used up to 70 days after the beginning of the last menstrual period instead of the 49-day limit in effect under the old label. Also, the second drug in the protocol, which follows a day or two later, can be taken by a woman at home and not be required to be administered at a clinic, reducing the number of office visits a woman must make.
“The FDA’s approval of a label reflecting a more updated, evidence-based protocol for medication abortion has the potential to expand women’s options for safely ending a pregnancy in the earliest weeks,” said Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “This label change underscores just how medically unnecessary and politically motivated restrictions on medication abortion in states like Texas and Oklahoma truly are, and demonstrates the lengths politicians will go to single out reproductive health care to restrict women’s rights.”
Abortion rights supporters say they expect providers in Ohio, North Dakota and Texas to begin administering the drugs in accordance with the new label within the next few days.
Chris France, executive director of Preterm, Ohio’s largest abortion provider, said: “We will be implementing the new protocol today.”
France said before Ohio’s law prohibiting off-label use of the drugs went into effect, between 10 and 15 percent of patients elected for a medication abortion. That number dropped below 2 percent after the law took effect.
“Combined with other restrictions in our state, medication abortion has required four in-person clinic visits, making this method too costly and cumbersome for most people,” France said. “Now, our providers will no longer be forced to practice medicine mandated by politicians whose goal is to shut us down.”
Randall O’Bannon, director of research for the anti-abortion group National Right to Life, said medication-induced abortions still are dangerous and have led to at least 14 deaths and thousands of injuries. He says the new protocols serve mostly the interests of the abortion industry by increasing their profit margin by requiring a smaller dose of the drug and reducing the level of staff they have to devote to the patient.
“It looks like this benefits the abortion industry and increases their potential customer base and revenues, but it’s not clear that anything here makes it safer for women in the long run, and certainly nothing about a chemical abortion makes it any safer for the unborn child,” O’Bannon said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Make the women who have abortions pay
For it. Why should i pay for someone elses mistake. Plenty of people would love to have a baby. Put it up for adoption.
Tell that to all the children in Foster Care who were NOT adopted. The US alone has over 400,000 children who ‘live’ in the foster care system (43% white). Most believe they are unwanted especially since almost everyone of them have been in an abusive ‘home’ at sometime in their short lives.
It would be nice if most at least graduated High School but they don’t … they don’t get the support they need in their early life to have a life. Most foster kids end up as very troubled adults without an education or a support group / family. Until we as a society take care of ALL the kids we shouldn’t be dumping more into a broken system. The system is allowing them to rot and those who mandated them into this broken system pay the least in time, emotions and money to ensure the CHILDREN have a chance at a real life.
twykes, why is it that Child Protective Services are overloaded with children, if there are so many pro-lifers why are there are many children in adoption agencies.? Lucky for the one that do get adopted, but many, many don’t.
Abortion! The ultimate child abuse.
Frost, ask the child that got thrown on against the wall with a cracked skull, the one that got scorched with hot water, the one that was left in the snow, ask the one that was sexually abuse if they think abortion was the ultimate child abuse, oh wait you can’t ask them, they are dead. Unwanted children get abused. Abortion is needed for many reasons, that a man has no right to meddle in. We live in a world where men use children as sex toys, we live in a world where young girls are kidnapped and are used by sex traffickers, we live in a world where men think they have the right to a women’s body regardless of what the women thinks. Abortion is there to protect the women in these instances and many more, you are not a women you wouldn’t understand. Again I ask why does a fetus have more rights then the women? Would you be comfortable if abortion was illegal and your daughter or granddaughter came up to you and told you she had had an abortion, and now she is facing prison time?
No, the FDA is not using a loop ;hole.
the states are trying to use a loop hole to obstruct women’s access to abortion. This action of the FDA plugs the loop hole the states are using.
All abortion drugs should be FULLY COVERED by ALL insurance.
Why are men no longer being held accountable for pregnancies? They are not held responsible for pregnancies. Expectations have shifted so that they don’t have to care, cause the girlfriend can get an abortion. Where do they show the respect for women. And there is nothing healthy about an abortion.
Drug induced abortions have their problems. The number of victims are likely to increase as these drugs gain more use. Only time will tell what harmful effects may come with these drugs.
From a Libertarian point of view, this makes perfect sense. The individual woman is responsible. But to make up for the future loss of productive people we allow illegals to flood the border. Nothing makes sense anymore.