A generic version of mifepristone, a highly popular abortion medication, was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration Sep. 30, following an order from U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a federal review of the pill.
While abortion advocacy groups are celebrating the approval of a new generic version of the pill, created by Evita Solutions, Kennedy’s move to challenge the safety of the medication has sparked fear of future restrictions on abortion.
Medicated abortions are done through a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, which blocks progesterone and stimulates contractions to expel the contents of the uterus, said Carrie Baker, chair of the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality program at Smith College.
Evita Solutions is now the third American company approved to produce mifepristone for medicated abortions, according to the FDA.
“It’s a great thing because the more generics you have, the lower the price,” Baker said. “There’s just more access.”
Boston University Student Health Services does not currently prescribe mifepristone, but students are encouraged to visit SHS with any reproductive concerns, Judy Platt, executive director of SHS, wrote in a statement to The Daily Free Press.
“For students who are pregnant, we offer … counseling and education to help with decision making,” Platt wrote.
BU Students for Reproductive Freedom has created a petition calling on the University to provide access to mifepristone through SHS, said Vice President Giana Freund.
“Having this access is so important to being able to make choices about your body,” Freund said. “You can always make other choices, but it’s nice to have that there and to know how to use it if that’s what you want.”
Angel Foster, co-founder of Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access, said mifepristone’s safety and efficacy has been demonstrated in more than 100 studies in the U.S. alone.
“If someone is challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, it’s not on the basis of science, and I don’t think it’s on the basis of women’s health,” Foster said. “It’s very clear that the anti-abortion rights movement is preoccupied with figuring out ways to restrict access to mifepristone, as a way of trying to have another ban on abortion.”
Massachusetts Citizens For Life, a pro-life advocacy organization, condemned the FDA’s approval of Evita Solution’s mifepristone.
“Abortion champions do not understand that women deserve long-term support and solutions that honor their dignity, not insensitive and dangerous short-term fixes, however well-intentioned they might be,” President Myrna Maloney Flynn wrote in a statement on the MCFL website.
Foster emphasized the importance of mifepristone beyond abortion purposes, highlighting the drug’s role in miscarriage management and obstetric work.
Taking the medication off the market for “political reasons” would be a “blow to women’s health and women’s health research,” she said.
In 2024, one in four medicated abortions were provided through Telehealth, a health care organization which delivers medication directly to users’ homes.
In 2020, there were just over 930,000 abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute. Four years later, the number jumped to 1.14 million.
“Telehealth has really expanded access to abortion, particularly for people living in rural areas that are far from brick and mortar clinics,” Baker said.
In 2020, the Trump administration blocked telehealth abortion services, lifting in-person restrictions on administering all drugs except for mifepristone, Baker said.
A year later, the FDA reversed the decision, allowing abortion medication to be administered via telehealth for the remainder of the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2021, restrictions surrounding access to abortion medication by mail were permanently lifted by the FDA.
“It’s safer than Tylenol, much safer than Viagra, and it really was politics that kept it so tightly restricted,” Baker said.
If the medication was ultimately banned, clinicians could still access mifepristone through international providers who could mail the medication into the U.S., Baker said.
She added the Trump administration’s funding cuts for health care and child care welfare programs are “fueling the need” for increased abortion access.
“They’ve defunded Planned Parenthood, which is a major place that low income people get contraception. They’re attacking Medicaid,” she said. “More people end up with unwanted pregnancies, and they have less resources to care for children.”
Foster said reproductive rights groups will not stop working to expand access to abortion medication — unless a law restricting such care is passed.
“Our practice is ‘No anticipatory obedience,’” Foster said. “So we’re just going to continue to do the work until we’re legally unable to do so.”
