In what many consider to be the most important abortion case before the nation’s highest court since the end of Roe vs. Wade, Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments surrounding the abortion pill mifepristone, also known as Mifeprex. At issue is whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration overreached when it removed safeguards that made the drug more accessible, and whether those safeguards need to be reinstated.
Mifepristone causes an abortion by blocking the mother’s progesterone production. Without progesterone, the unborn baby dies. After a woman takes mifepristone, another drug, misoprostol, causes the unborn child to be expelled from her mother’s body.
FDA Made the Drug More Available
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 for women who were no more than seven weeks pregnant. At that time, the agency required the pills to be given to the patient by a doctor at one of three mandatory in-person doctor visits.
However, beginning in 2016, the FDA began removing those safeguards, making the pills much easier to obtain. Now, in-person doctor visits are no longer required, which means the pills can be delivered in the mail without the recipient ever seeing a health care provider. Also, the gestation age has
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