Get the Facts About Mifepristone and Abortion Pills
Extremists want to take away our access to abortion pills — mifepristone and misoprostol — so they are flooding us with mis- and disinformation. Learn the facts about this safe, effective, and sometimes life-saving healthcare.
Mifepristone and Abortion Pill Basics
WHAT IS MIFEPRISTONE?
Mifepristone is one of two medications used in abortion care and miscarriage management. Since its approval by the FDA in 2000, mifepristone has been proven safe and effective for use in the comfort and privacy of your own home. Abortion pills like mifepristone are available by mail in all 50 states through Telehealth. It has been proven safer than common medications like Viagra and penicillin.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association have said that mifepristone can be “potentially life-saving care” in miscarriage management.
What does mifepristone do?
Mifepristone is often the first pill taken in a medication abortion to block the hormone progesterone that a pregnancy needs to continue to grow in the uterus. It is followed by a second medication, misoprostol.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
What is the abortion pill?
Abortion pills (also known as medication abortion) are medicines that can be used to end a pregnancy. The most common abortion pills are a combination of mifepristone followed by misoprostol, or just misoprostol alone. Research shows that both are safe and effective.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Is mifepristone used for miscarriages?
Mifepristone and misoprostol are also used to safely treat miscarriages. That means restrictions on mifepristone affect women who need miscarriage care, not just abortion.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, Society of Family Planning (PDF)
Mifepristone Safety
Is Mifepristone safe?
Mifepristone is very safe. It was developed in the 1980s and has been safely used in Europe since 1987 and in the U.S. since 2000. The American Medical Association has warned that reducing access to mifepristone would harm patients.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, American Medical Association
Is mifepristone FDA approved?
Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000. That approval has been challenged in court, which you can read more about below.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Is it safe to use abortion pills at home?
Yes, for most people, it is safe to use abortion pills at home without seeing a healthcare provider in person. If you want to talk with a doctor first, the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline (833-246-2632) offers free, confidential support by call or text.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, Society of Family Planning
Is abortion pill reversal real?
This experimental, unproven practice attempts to counteract a medication abortion after mifepristone is taken, and there is no evidence that abortion pill reversal is effective, and it may be harmful. It has been rejected by medical authorities like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It is often promoted by crisis pregnancy centers, which are anti-abortion organizations that do not provide abortion care.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Access to Abortion Pills
Can I get abortion pills by mail?
In all 50 states, you can order abortion pills online through Telehealth by having a video visit or filling out a medical questionnaire, and abortion medication is mailed to you, usually within 1 to 5 days. Plan C lists where people get abortion pills in every state.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, AbortionFinder, Bedsider, Charley·Obstetrics & Gynecology
What are shield laws?
Shield laws protect doctors and nurses — licensed in states with these laws — against legal action from other states for prescribing and sending abortion pills through telehealth to people in any U.S. state. Efforts to stop abortion pills from being mailed, including through the Comstock Act, are covered below.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, Guttmacher Institute
Crisis Pregnancy Centers
What is a crisis pregnancy center?
A crisis pregnancy center is an anti-abortion organization that exists to stop people from getting abortions, and it does not provide abortion care. Most crisis pregnancy centers try to look like legitimate doctors’ offices, but they hold no medical license, do not follow the regulations that real clinics do, and rely on volunteers without medical training.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, Abortion Finder, Planned Parenthood, I Need An A
What is the harm of crisis pregnancy centers?
Crisis pregnancy centers may lie about how far along you are, try to delay you getting real abortion care, or claim abortion is unsafe or causes cancer, infertility, or mental-health problems, none of which is true.
Sources: Reproductive Health Knowledge Base, Planned Parenthood, I Need An A
WHY IS MIFEPRISTONE AT RISK?
In November 2022, an anti-abortion physician’s group known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) filed a lawsuit in Texas to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. They picked an area of Texas where they knew they were likely to win their case. A Trump-appointed judge ruled in their favor and revoked the drug’s FDA approval. That decision was quickly blocked and the medication was allowed to stay on the market while the case progressed. After a series of injunctions, lower court rulings, and appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case and issued its ruling in June 2024.
The Supreme Court rejected the AHM’s challenge, so the drug’s FDA approval is safe — for now. While this can be seen as a win at the moment, we know that these challenges to medication abortion are far from over. That’s because of how the court issued its ruling. They didn’t rule on the merits of the case itself, they simply ruled that the AHM didn’t have standing to bring the challenge. In other words, they didn’t rule on the actual substance of the case, they simply said that since the AHM doctors hadn’t been injured by the medication, their case did not belong in the federal courts.
Since then, the attack tactics have changed. Anti-abortion state attorneys general have filed new lawsuits, including a Louisiana case that seeks to end prescriptions for mifepristone through Telehealth and by mail, and a Florida and Texas case that seeks to revoke mifepristone’s FDA approval entirely.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the court’s 2024 ruling that challengers could also take their concerns to the president and the FDA, and that’s exactly what happened. In the fall of 2025, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed the FDA to review mifepristone’s safety, citing a self-published report that was not peer-reviewed and did not disclose its data. Courts have paused several of these lawsuits while that review continues.
In October 2026, the FDA told a federal court it expects to finish the safety study by mid-December and issue a report no later than March 2027, after which it will decide whether to change how mifepristone is prescribed and distributed.
Anti-abortion extremists would also like to use an antiquated law called the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion medications. The Florida and Texas lawsuit cites it, and it’s part of Project 2025, which you can read more about here.
For now, the current rules remain in place, and abortion pills are still available by mail in all 50 states through Telehealth providers, which you can read more about at Plan C.
All this means we have more work to do. Judges and politicians should not be making our personal decisions for us. In that same 2024 Supreme Court ruling, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that disagreements over mifepristone belong in “the political and electoral processes,” not federal court, and that is exactly where we intend to fight.
We can’t count on the current Supreme Court or extremist politicians to protect our reproductive rights, which is why we must vote for judges and lawmakers who will — and get all our friends and family to join us.