Boxes of the remedy Mifepristone used to induce a medical abortion are ready for sufferers at Planned Parenthood well being middle in Birmingham, Alabama, March 14, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The abortion capsule is the most typical technique to terminate a being pregnant within the U.S., in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC, in a report revealed Wednesday, discovered that about 51% of abortions in 2020 have been carried out with the capsule at or earlier than the ninth week of being pregnant. From 2019 to 2020, abortions with the capsule elevated 22%, in accordance with the report.
The capsule, mifepristone, has grow to be a flashpoint within the battle over reproductive rights within the wake of the Supreme Court’s choice to abolish federal abortion rights in June. Twelve states have outlawed abortion since then, however banning the capsule is tough as a result of it has grow to be simpler to acquire.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration suspended a requirement that girls acquire mifepristone in individual, permitting them to obtain the capsule by mail and at retail pharmacies. The drug company introduced in December 2021 that it could make this variation everlasting.
Anti-abortion teams final week requested a federal court docket in Texas to overturn the FDA’s greater than two-decade-old approval of mifepristone. The teams’ attorneys are from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a company concerned within the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that led the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and eight different senators requested the FDA in a letter final week to to broaden entry to mifepristone by approving its use for miscarriage administration. This would enhance girls’s entry to the capsule in states which are limiting entry, the senators wrote.
The FDA has authorised mifepristone together with the pill misoprostol as a way to terminate pregnancies earlier than the tenth week. Mifepristone prevents the being pregnant from persevering with and misoprostol causes contractions that vacant the uterus. The technique is 96% to 98% efficient at ending early pregnancies.
The abortion capsule has grow to be an more and more frequent approach to finish a being pregnant within the U.S. Abortions with the capsule elevated 154% from 2011 to 2020, in accordance with CDC knowledge.
More than 620,000 abortions have been carried out within the U.S. in 2020, a 15% lower since 2011. Almost all abortions, 93%, are carried out at or earlier than the thirteenth week of being pregnant, and 80% are executed at or earlier than the ninth week, in accordance with the CDC knowledge.
Surgical abortions are the second commonest technique to finish a being pregnant. About 40% of all abortions have been carried out with surgical procedures at or earlier than that thirteenth week of being pregnant, in accordance with the CDC.