Federal Drug Administration updates label on abortion pill to hinder restrictive anti-abortion strategy

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an updated label for mifepristone, a drug used for medical abortion. This change is expected to expand access for women not only in Texas but throughout clinics nationwide.

The new label aligns more closely with evidence-based medicine and effectively codifies the protocol that physicians have been using for over a decade. It allows mifepristone to be prescribed at lower dosages, later in pregnancy, and without additional trips to the clinic.

This update may undermine a key tactic used by right-wing legislators to erect medically unnecessary barriers to abortion care. Politicians can no longer deny women access to this safe and effective method of early abortion care by insisting on an outdated regimen due to the updated label.

In Texas, the controversial anti-abortion law HB2 shuttered dozens of clinics, making the FDA's requirement for two separate doctor visits particularly onerous. Since HB2 went into effect, the percentage of women in Texas receiving medication abortion care has dramatically decreased, with only about 5% being served in the past two years.

However, the updated label is a significant victory for reproductive rights advocates. Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, stated that the label change underscores the medically unnecessary and politically motivated restrictions on medication abortion in states like Texas and Oklahoma.

ProPublica reporter Nina Martin stated that the new FDA rule is a "huge blow to efforts in Texas, Arizona, Ohio, and elsewhere to eliminate medical abortions." Texas and Arizona have both legally challenged the FDA's new labeling requirements for mifepristone, opposing the adjustments that affect abortion medication access.

A similar effort is currently underway in Arizona, where state lawmakers recently approved a bill that requires the use of the drug for abortion according to the 15-year-old labeling. The updated label undermines these efforts to restrict access to medication abortion.

The label change demonstrates the lengths politicians will go to single out reproductive health care to restrict women's rights. Prior to the passage of HB2, approximately 40-50% of patients at Whole Woman's Health clinic network in Texas chose medication abortion. The new regimen recognizes evidence-based care that physicians have been using for more than a decade.

The new FDA label change may effectively undermine efforts to restrict medication abortion access in states with anti-abortion laws, allowing women to access medical abortion care in states where anti-choice restrictions have made this evidence-based care unavailable.