You Will Hear These 10 False Narratives About Abortion. Here’s All You’ll Need to Fight Back

This factsheet was originally published by The Guttmacher Institute, “How to Counter 10 False Narratives About Abortion in an Age of Misinformation.”

Misinformation about abortion care is rampant and being weaponized at state and federal levels to justify wide-ranging restrictions across the United States.

Ensuring awareness of these narratives, and combatting them with rigorous data and evidence, is critical both for preventing them from becoming entrenched in law and for rolling back harmful policies rooted in misinformation.

This fact sheet offers evidence-based statements to counter 10 common but false narratives about abortion, and offers readers additional ways to dive deeper into the following topics.

1. Safety of Medication Abortion

Mifepristone—one of two drugs used in the most common medication abortion regimen in the United States—is safe and effective.

• Antiabortion policymakers and activists are using false and misleading claims to cast doubt on mifepristone’s safety and efficacy, and to push the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reimpose medically unnecessary restrictions.
• 65 percent of abortions in the United States were medication abortions in 2023, and decades of evidence from the United States and around the world have clearly established mifepristone’s strong safety profile. Other medication abortion regimens, such as those that use misoprostol alone, also have a long-established safety record.
• Evidence shows that telehealth provision of medication abortion—where patients receive abortion pills by mail after consulting virtually with a US-based clinician—is also safe and effective. Restrictions that limit telehealth provision and instead require in-person dispensing of pills are based on political ideology and run counter to robust evidence.

2. Follow-Up Care for Medication Abortion

People may seek care at emergency rooms during or after a medication abortion for a range of reasons and their seeking such care does not call mifepristone’s safety into question.

• A common false narrative weaponized against medication abortion relies on junk science that, because of its serious methodological flaws, dramatically overstates the rate at which medication abortion patients experience serious complications. This includes classifying all or most visits to the emergency room following a medication abortion as “serious adverse events.”
• Many people seek care during or after a medication abortion to confirm they are no longer pregnant, or because they are concerned about expected symptoms, such as bleeding and cramping, that are not evidence of medical complications. Serious adverse events—like sepsis, blood loss requiring a transfusion or other complications requiring hospitalization—occur in well below 1% of all medication abortions using mifepristone.
• Even if their symptoms are standard and expected, people should be able to seek care during or after a medication abortion. The primary risks of seeking this care are legal, not medical. The risks of being criminalized for reproductive health choices and outcomes are particularly high for residents of states where abortion is banned.

3. Claims of Coerced Medication Abortions

Efforts to restrict mifepristone based on claims about reproductive coercion are rooted in politics, not facts.

• Reproductive coercion refers to abusive behavior that interferes with an individual’s decision-making around pregnancy and reproductive health. Antiabortion activists and policymakers are attempting to distort the reality of reproductive coercion with false narratives suggesting mifepristone must be restricted to prevent such abuse. True bodily autonomy—including the ability to choose whether or not to become or stay pregnant—requires the absence of reproductive coercion in the form of both interpersonal violence and state control.
• Relying on a handful of anecdotal allegations, some of which have been demonstrated to be unfounded, these coercion narratives are designed to justify restrictions on medication abortion, especially telehealth provision, and to target shield law providers with baseless claims that they are complicit in coerced abortions.
• By contrast, research indicates that reproductive coercion more commonly involves people being forced or pressured into becoming or staying pregnant against their will, rather than terminating a wanted pregnancy. Moreover, rigorous research shows that abortion bans actually increase the risk of intimate partner violence.

4. Environmental Claims Related to Medication Abortion

There is no evidence to support the claim that abortion pills impact drinking water quality or harm the environment.

• Antiabortion policymakers and advocates have mobilized around the false claim that abortion pills contaminate drinking water, including the introduction of the federal “Clean Water for All Life Act” in March 2026, which would require anyone using abortion pills to use a “catch-kit” when ending their pregnancy.
• Antiabortion activists and policymakers are not focused on addressing the well-studied environmental hazards that are known to contaminate drinking water, such as the impacts of pesticides used by the agricultural industry, by forever chemicals, and by the industrial polluting sites that often placed near communities of color.
• With no evidence that abortion pills are contaminating water, it is clear that these are not good-faith efforts to protect the environment or U.S. water supplies.

5. Mental Health and Abortion

There is no evidence which indicates that having an abortion causes subsequent mental health problems.

• The narrative that obtaining an abortion causes negative mental health outcomes is often used to justify restrictions on access to abortion, but such claims are not supported by evidence.
• High-quality studies show no causal link between abortion and subsequent mental health problems, with many women reporting relief rather than distress. Negative emotions are more strongly linked to low social support or prior history of poor mental health.
• Research shows that in the short-term, not being able to have a wanted abortion is associated with greater risk of adverse psychological outcomes.

6. Abortion Later in Pregnancy

Inflammatory language about abortion later in pregnancy—a phrase generally used to describe abortions accessed at 21 or more weeks—does not reflect medical realities or lived experiences of those obtaining such care.

• There is no precise clinical definition of when “later in pregnancy” begins, and policies that restrict access to abortion at various gestational limits are based on politics, not medicine.
• Antiabortion activists and policymakers often use blatantly false language about abortions occurring “at“ or “after birth” when describing abortions later in pregnancy. These claims have no basis in evidence, facts or medical standards of care and serve only to increase stigma around abortion later in pregnancy or add additional restrictions on this care.
• People need and obtain abortion care during many different stages of pregnancy, and their experiences are varied. However, the barriers increase steeply for those seeking care after 21 weeks—due to arbitrary legal limits based on gestational duration, high costs and the low number of providers that offer this care.

7. Exceptions to Abortion Bans

Adding narrow exceptions to abortion bans often only serves to make them appear less draconian and does not ensure people receive the care they need.

• Despite some states granting narrow exceptions to their abortion bans (e.g., for medical emergencies or pregnancies resulting from sexual assault), abortion restrictions and legal threats have continued to limit clinicians’ provision of abortion care for people facing life-threatening pregnancy complications and for survivors of rape and incest.
• Abortion bans have also impacted the provision of other kinds of reproductive healthcare, including care for pregnancy loss. Denials of this care, sometimes prompted by fears of legal repercussions, have resulted in a series of preventable deaths and serious medical complications.
• Rather than address these harms, policymakers have instead used exception laws to interfere in medical decision-making and attempted to carve out pregnancy loss care from the legal definition of abortion. Such strategies disregard evidence that the best way to ensure essential care provision for people in medical emergencies and for those who have experienced sexual violence is to expand and protect abortion access for all.

8. Restrictions on Minors’ Access to Abortion

Parental involvement laws do not help young people—they increase barriers to accessing abortion care and can put young people at risk.

• Young people face unique barriers in accessing abortion care, as they often experience delays in recognizing pregnancy and have the fewest resources to overcome bans and restrictions.
• Parental involvement laws—which include parental consent and notification laws and which are in effect in 38 states—only amplify these barriers. Some states are going even further in efforts to restrict young people’s access, with legislation that would eliminate judicial bypass options and that threaten the support organizations and individuals that help young people travel out of state for care. 
• Research shows that most young people involve a parent in their decision to have an abortion, and those who choose not to do so commonly fear coercion or conflict. Despite offering a critical mechanism for young people to access abortion care, the judicial bypass process can also cause harm to young people because of the added logistical and emotional challenges of this process.

9. The Prevalence of Abortion

Abortion is a common reproductive health experience, accessed by people across regions and demographic groups, and abortion restrictions do not reduce demand for abortion.

• One in four U.S. women of reproductive age will have an abortion by age 45, an estimate based on the 2020 abortion rate. Because the overall number of abortions has increased since 2020, the share of women projected to have an abortion may also be higher today.
• The number of abortions provided by U.S. clinicians has increased since Roe v. Wade was overturned. This increase underscores the ongoing need for abortion care, even as bans and restrictions continue to prevent many people from accessing care in their own communities.
• People with diverse gender and sexual orientation identities obtain abortion care. Guttmacher research from 2021‒2022 shows that as many as 16 percent of people obtaining abortions do not identify as heterosexual women, which includes trans and gender non-binary abortion seekers. Using gender-inclusive language accurately reflects the diversity of the people seeking abortion care.

10. Ripple Effects of Abortion Restrictions

Restrictions on abortion care do not just impact people’s access to abortion—they implicate the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive healthcare.

• Policymakers are using a playbook that has been successful in attacks against abortion to restrict a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including contraception, infertility care and gender-affirming care.
• Antiabortion policymakers also often justify restricting programs like Title X based on antiabortion ideology, cutting off essential resources to federal family planning programs that have never funded abortion care.
• These actors have relied on similar antiabortion claims to defund providers like Planned Parenthood, a strategy which also threatens people’s access to birth control, primary care, cancer screenings, pre-natal care, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and behavioral health services.
• Care for people experiencing pregnancy loss involves many of the same medications and procedures as abortion care—and access to these services is also threatened by efforts to restrict abortion care.
• These interconnected attacks demonstrate that restricting abortion is not the endgame: the goal is pervasive state control over people’s reproductive lives and health decisions.

Look to these trusted groups if you or a loved one needs to know more about reliable abortion care:

• A one-stop-shop for abortion seekers: I Need An A
• Safe websites to buy abortion medication: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder
• If you need help affording abortion care, contact an abortion fund near you.
• To protect your digital privacy when planning your abortion, click here.
• For free legal help as a patient or doctor, call If/When/How’s Repro Helpline: 844-868-2812
• For medical advice, contact the Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline: 833-246-2632
• If you need to know the abortion law in your state, look to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need. Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. Add your voice and complete the sentence: “Access to reproductive choices gave me the freedom to….” Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.