In the post-Roe world, one of the main targets of anti-abortion activists is drug abortion, a two-drug regimen in which a pregnant person takes mifepristone followed by misoprostol.

A lawsuit filed late last year by abortion opponents in a federal court in Amarillo, Texas

That

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative known for his anti-abortion views, must withdraw the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for mifepristone. They claim

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the agency did not study the drug properly and removed even the most basic precautions associated with its use. Kacsmaryk is expected to issue a ruling any day.

The claim is weak considering that medication abortion has been available in the US since 2000 and is currently used for more than half of abortions in this country

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and is extremely effective and safe (with serious side effects occurring in less than a third of 1% of abortions). In any case, healthcare providers and researchers believe that it is overly regulated. For years, obtaining a prescription for abortion medication required at least one in-person visit and was only available in certain healthcare settings and under certain conditions. Recently, the FDA expanded the rules to allow telehealth visits to get a prescription and pass on the drugs pharmacies that meet certain qualifications. (However, on Friday, Walgreens, a

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the country’s largest pharmacies bowed to pressure and announced they would stop providing mifepristone in 20 states where attorneys general are challenging the legality of its use.

Attorneys for the Department of Justice and the FDA argue that the department evaluated mifepristone extensively before approving it for drug-induced abortion. In court filings, they say the agency “reviewed three separate clinical trials involving more than 2,500 pregnant patients, and those trials provided substantial evidence of effectiveness and showed a low rate of serious side effects.” The FDA also defended that the drug “provides a meaningful therapeutic advantage for some patients over surgical abortion because it avoids an invasive (though very safe) surgical procedure for abortion.

If the judge were to withdraw the FDA’s approval for mifepristone, lawyers believe it would be unprecedented. “We are not aware of any instance where a court has withdrawn a drug from the market over FDA objection.”

wrote

a group of scientists in the field of food and drug law

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in an amicus brief to the FDA.

It would also be another medically unwarranted attempt by abortion opponents to deny access to health care

to healthcare

to pregnant people. Nearly helped the states in the country enact abortion bans or restrictions so severe that they severely restrict access. Now anti-abortion activists are trying to place restrictions on access to abortion in states where it is allowed and protected.

Fortunately, taking mifepristone, which is primarily used for abortions and miscarriages, off the market won’t stop drug-induced abortions, though it could cause confusion and disruption across the country. The second drug, misoprostol, can only be used for abortions, although it is slightly less effective. It is not subject to the same restrictions as it has other clinical uses such as the treatment of stomach ulcers.

The two-drug regimen works up to 99% of the time, while the misoprostol-only regimen works up to 97% of the time, according to Lauren Kokum, director of affiliate communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The organization allows its 49 affiliates that run 600 health centers in the US to use only misoprostol.

Meanwhile, state legislators continue to pile up

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more restrictions on abortions. Iowa lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would not only ban abortion, but add the ludicrous requirement that Internet service providers block people’s access to abortion-related websites while they’re in the state.

The extreme efforts that anti-abortion activists will go to should disturb anyone who cares about exercising civil rights, especially the right to control one’s own body. These attacks on access to abortion will continue until every state has a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion, or until Congress passes a national law authorizing abortion in every state. Think about that the next time you vote for a member of Congress.