What You Need to Know About Ordering Abortion Pills by Mail
Most often, abortions are performed in the early stages of taking the miscarriage pills. This method – medical abortion – is simple and safe, but until recently, federal regulations made it illegal to receive these pills in the mail like other prescriptions. The FDA changed this rule forever.
To be clear: we are talking about pills that can abort an existing pregnancy, and not related to emergency contraception like Plan B, which can prevent pregnancy after sex.
What is medical abortion?
Medical abortion is used during pregnancy in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. You take mifepristone to keep the pregnancy from growing and misoprostol to force it out of the uterus. The experience is similar to a miscarriage, as the Planned Parenthood system explains here .
How has the mail-order abortion pill law changed?
A recent rule change came as a small addition to this FDA webpage , but The New York Times has published more details . Of the two drugs used in this type of abortion, one – mifepristone – is highly regulated. Prescribers must be specially certified and patients must sign an agreement that they have been informed about the drug.
There used to be another requirement: to dispense mifepristone in person. This meant that you had to go to the clinic, not just the pharmacy, to get the pill, but this requirement never made sense, since you experience the effect of the pill later, at home; Doctors have long argued that getting it in the clinic does not improve patient safety, and finally the FDA agrees.
The personal attendance requirement has been temporarily suspended due to part of the pandemic and the new rule change makes this permanent. Instead of a personal requirement, the pharmacy that dispenses the pills is required to be specially certified. This means that mifepristone is still more annoying than other prescription drugs, but if you cannot find a certified clinic or pharmacy locally, it is now possible to have an early abortion using telemedicine. You will have a video visit with a certified provider and then receive the tablets in the mail from a certified pharmacy.
Of course, any abortion order will always be fought by people. Currently, according to The New York Times, 19 states have laws against telemedicine abortion. Thus, even though the federal government does not object to remote prescribing of pills, people living in these 19 states would have to travel if they wanted to legally order pills by mail.