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Health officials announced Tuesday that retail pharmacies in the US will be allowed to sell abortion pills. This follows last year’s historic Supreme Court decision that removed federal abortion rights, which may drastically increase access to the operation.
Mifepristone, the first of two medications used to end a pregnancy, will be offered in neighbourhood drug stores in states where abortion is legal thanks to regulatory adjustments announced by the Food and Drug Administration.
The medications, which were previously only accessible through a select number of mail-order pharmacies or licenced physicians and clinics, will now require a doctor’s prescription.
Since last June’s monumental decision by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which reversed Roe v. Wade, a 1973 case that had protected women’s access to an abortion for 50 years, there has been an increase in demand for abortion pills.
Experts estimate that more than half of US procedures to end pregnancies already involve the use of abortion pills, which have increasingly come into focus in the political and legal fight over abortion rights since the Supreme Court’s contentious ruling.
Patients must fill out a consent form, and pharmacies must be certified before they may deliver the medication.
The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the FDA’s judgement.
“We are pleased the FDA has increased pharmacy access to this safe and effective drug, easing one of the agency’s unjustified restrictions on mifepristone patients,” said Julia Kaye of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.
The ruling was criticised by Susan B. Anthony List head Marjorie Dannenfelser, who opposes abortion.
Dannenfelser issued a statement in which she claimed that “the Biden administration has once again demonstrated that it favours the profits of the abortion business over women’s safety and the lives of unborn children.”
