Just after the Supreme Court delivered its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on Friday, which overturned Roe v. Wade, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland came out swinging against conservative states that are seeking to ban abortion pills.
In a rebuke to a growing number of red states that are clamping down on access to abortifacient drugs, Garland said that states cannot prohibit the abortion drug mifepristone "based on disagreement with the FDA's expert judgment."
The Food and Drug Administration "has approved the use" of mifepristone and that decision could not be overturned by states attempting to limit access to abortion, he said.
"Women who reside in states that have banned access to comprehensive reproductive care must remain free to seek that care in states where it is legal," Garland said. "Moreover, under fundamental First Amendment principles, individuals must remain free to inform and counsel each other about the reproductive care that is available in other states."
Abortifacient medication mifepristone has become an increasingly popular option for at-home abortions since the FDA approved it for use in 2000, Insider reports.
These types of abortions can be done in the first 11 weeks of pregnancy.
According to data from the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortion made up 54% of U.S. abortions in 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when Americans were being told not to travel and to avoid in-person medical care, the FDA and Biden administration greenlit chemical abortions with a complementary pair of directives.
In December 2021, the FDA permanently relaxed its rule and announced it would allow abortion pills to be sent via postal mail. The Biden administration then, in April 2021, rescinded a federal ban on mail-order abortion pills.
Medication abortions are usually performed by taking the abortifacient drug mifepristone along with another abortifacient misoprostol.
Mifepristone is taken first, as it blocks the production of progesterone, a hormone needed to continue a pregnancy.
Directly after or up to two days later, misoprostol is taken, which causes the uterus to contract and expel the embryo or fetus out of the body, Yale University gynecologist Dr. Mary Jane Minkin previously told Insider.
"You will be experiencing, in a sense, a miscarriage," Minkin said.
Though an at-home abortion is sometimes done only with mifepristone, research has shown that using both drugs together eliminates the potential need to remove the fetus through surgery.
A spokesperson for Danco Labs, a leading manufacturer of mifepristone, told ABC News the company was "prepared for any surge" in orders following the Dobbs decision.
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