Abortion providers back to ‘business as usual’ after high court's mifepristone ruling

JUNE 13, 2024 4:15 PM ET
By Elissa Nadworny, Selena Simmons-Duffin

Some abortion providers were stockpiling mifepristone. Others were preparing to use alternative drug regimens to terminate pregnancies. But the Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday to uphold the FDA’s rules on abortion medication means none of that is necessary, at least right now.

"We continue business as usual,” says Lauren Jacobson, a nurse practitioner in Massachusetts who provides abortion pills, including mifepristone, by mail. “The Supreme Court has not made it more difficult than it already is for people to get access to abortion pills.” Jacobson, who works for Aid Access, one of the largest abortion-by-mail organizations that sends pills to all 50 states, says so far today, she’s written about 30 prescriptions for mifepristone.

[...]

Dr. Louise King, the director of reproductive ethics at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, says the Supreme Court came to the correct decision about the case, but agrees with Ziegler that more challenges to mifepristone are likely. “It's a pause in panic, is all it is,” she says.

[...]

For now, in places where abortion is legal, mifepristone remains available up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and can be prescribed through telemedicine.