The change may make medication abortion more accessible in states where it is legal.
The Food and Drug Administration took steps on Tuesday to ease access to medication abortion in states where it is legal, allowing retail pharmacies to dispense the pills, which were previously available only at clinics, directly from doctors or by mail.
The regulatory change, which was released with little fanfare or explanation Tuesday night, appeared to reflect the Biden administration’s desire to deliver on its vow to keep abortion accessible after the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion.
The FDA had announced a year ago that it would update protocols for prescribing the abortion pill mifepristone — the first pill used in the two-drug regimen for medication abortions. On Tuesday, the agency completed that update by cementing a pandemic-era change that expanded telehealth access to the procedure. The agency also indicated it would allow certain pharmacies to dispense abortion pills directly, rather than by requiring patients to pick them up from a health care facility, or wait for them to come in the mail from a handful of mail-order pharmacies.
Under the new rules, patients will still need a prescription from a certified health care provider, but any pharmacy that agrees to accept those prescriptions and abide by other criteria can dispense the pills in its stores and by mail.
GenBioPro, the company that makes the generic version of the abortion pill, announced the change in an email and the FDA described the changes in an update to a section of its website.
Medication abortions have become increasingly common since the FDA approved mifepristone more than two decades ago and now account for more than half of pregnancy terminations in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. As a result, the pills have become the latest battleground over abortion, as conservative states take steps to make it more difficult to access the medication.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — which has long advocated for retail pharmacies to dispense the drug — called it an “important step forward in securing access to medication abortion.
“This change will empower patients who choose medication abortion to have the option of going to a pharmacy for immediate care rather than waiting for a mail order, if that is right for them,” Iffath Abbasi Hoskins, ACOG’s president, said in a statement, adding the group will continue to advocate to further remove other rules around accessing the medication.
