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Medication abortion uses two FDA-approved oral medications to end a pregnancy: mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly referred to as “abortion pills.” Mifepristone interrupts the flow of the hormone progesterone that sustains the pregnancy, and misoprostol causes contractions to expel the contents of the uterus. You can use these pills in combination or use misoprostol alone.
Abortion pills are extremely safe. Serious adverse events occur in less than one-third of one percent of medication abortions. Abortion pills are over 95 percent effective when used within 10 weeks of the first day of your last menstrual period.
The organization Plan C has a comprehensive guide to finding abortion pills on their website at www.plancpills.org. Select “Find Abortion Pills” and then select the state where you are located from the drop-down menu. The website is continually updated and has all the latest information on where to find abortion pills from anywhere in the U.S.
As Republicans create ever higher barriers to abortion that push abortion seekers later into pregnancy, U.S.-based activists are learning from Latin American feminists who have developed protocols to make second-trimester medication abortion easier and safer.
MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.
Since our last report:
—President Trump lost his latest appeal effort against paying New York writer E. Jean Carroll an $83.3 million defamation judgment.
—The government is using family separation as an antiabortion tactic via Child Protective Services.
—The House passed HR 2616, the so-called Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act, with support from eight Democrats; if enacted, the bill would bar federally funded public elementary and middle schools from acknowledging transgender students and require educators to notify parents if a student identifies as transgender at school.
—A reminder: People can order abortion pills from all 50 states, no matter what the courts decide.
… and more.
On May 1, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the mailing of mifepristone, one of the most widely used abortion medications in the country, threatening access for patients already facing a shrinking number of clinics nationwide. Although the Supreme Court temporarily stayed the ruling earlier this month, Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent revealed something even more alarming: a renewed effort to resurrect the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law once used to criminalize the mailing of abortion- and contraception-related materials.
The Comstock Act’s history is deeply tied to censorship, moral policing and attacks on marginalized communities. Under its broad and subjective definition of “obscenity,” authorities targeted contraception, abortion information, sexual health materials, queer literature and even works of classical art. Its reproductive restrictions disproportionately harmed poor and working-class women, who were often cut off from the safest and most affordable forms of care.
Today, antiabortion activists are once again looking to Comstock as a tool to restrict abortion nationwide—this time through the courts. Thomas’ explicit invocation of the law in the mifepristone fight signals how far-right legal movements are attempting to revive long-discredited morality laws to roll back reproductive freedom and other established rights.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made multiple headlines last week—starting with the apparent implosion of Dr. Marty Makary’s tenure as Food and Drug Administration commissioner. But beneath the chaos lies something more troubling: a federal health apparatus increasingly shaped by antiabortion pressure campaigns, pronatalist messaging and culture-war governance masquerading as public policy.
From the Supreme Court fight over mifepristone access to the Trump administration’s bizarre new moms.gov initiative—complete with links to antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers and rhetoric about Americans being “under-babied”—the week offered a revealing snapshot of where U.S. health policy is headed. Meanwhile, flavored vape approvals for Big Tobacco sailed through the FDA, even as reproductive healthcare access remains under constant attack.
Chaos may be Trump’s currency, but the throughline here is ideology: rewarding conservative allies, policing reproductive autonomy and repackaging motherhood as a nationalist project while offering little meaningful material support to actual families.
The mifepristone case that has landed on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket is the new face of conservative efforts to impose a nationwide ban on abortion.
It’s possible that the Court is close and needs a little more time to reach a decision. There has been some thought it might set the case for argument on the merits as early as next month, or more realistically, next term, and decide it on the merits quickly, at least as courts count time.
But given the political weight of the issue in a midterm election year, the Court could also return to its history with mifepristone: kicking the can down the road. That’s what they did when the Texas case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, came before it in June 2024, deciding that the plaintiffs lacked standing and dismissing the case, instead of ruling on the substantive issue.
Thursday, May 14, at 5 p.m. ET, the Supreme Court’s temporary stay in the mifepristone case is set to expire, once again leaving abortion providers, patients and advocates waiting to see whether the Court will extend the pause, or allow the Fifth Circuit’s restrictions on mifepristone to take effect.
If the Court does nothing, the lower-court ruling could snap back into place, threatening mail-order and telemedicine access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used in medication abortion.
But abortion rights advocates say the story does not end there. Telemedicine abortion networks, shield-law protections, advance provision and community-based access have already reshaped abortion care in the post-Dobbs landscape—and those systems are continuing to evolve.
Julie F. Kay, a human rights lawyer and founder and executive director of Reproductive Futures, has spent years working at the intersection of reproductive rights, telemedicine abortion and shield-law protections. She co-founded the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, challenged Ireland’s abortion ban before the European Court of Human Rights, and co-authored Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week:
—The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, slashing protections against racially discriminatory voting laws.
—A record high amount of books were censored from libraries in 2025, often due to LGBTQ characters or plotlines addressing racism.
—A third of moms living on low incomes have gone into debt or skipped meals so their kids could eat.
—Just 22 percent of American voters have significant confidence in the Supreme Court.
—In 2025 the number of abortions in the U.S. remained stable, but more patients in states with bans turned to telehealth services instead of traveling out of state.
—The Department of Justice announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty.
—An Epstein-Maxwell survivor, who asked to remain anonymous, laments, “I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world.”
—The Trump administration launched a Moms.gov site on Mother’s Day that refers pregnant people to unregulated crisis pregnancy centers.
—A Ms. piece on solitary confinement by Kwaneta Harris and her daughter Summer Knight won Kwaneta second place in the Collaboration category of the Stillwater Awards for prison journalism.
—Liberation, a play about 1970s feminism by Bess Wohl, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Wohl was inspired by her own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, was an early Ms. contributor.
… and more.
On May 1, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a sweeping ruling seeking to prohibit telehealth prescribing of mifepristone, forcing women to see a provider in-person to acquire the first pill in the standard two-drug medication abortion regimen. The decision would have blocked U.S. clinicians from mailing abortion pills after telehealth consultations nationwide.
On May 4, however, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused that ruling, preserving current telehealth and mail access while the justices consider next steps. The Court’s temporary ruling was set to last until 5 p.m. ET on Monday, May 11, giving the justices time to decide whether to extend the pause or let the lower-court ruling take effect.
Then, on Monday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court briefly extended its temporary order preserving telehealth and mail access to mifepristone while the justices continue deliberating over the emergency appeal. Justice Samuel Alito extended the Court’s administrative stay through Thursday, May 14, at 5 p.m. ET, keeping on hold the Fifth Circuit’s May 1 ruling that would have required patients nationwide to obtain the medication through in-person visits. The order means that, for now, people can still access mifepristone through telehealth consultations and mail delivery under the current FDA rules.
National Institute for Reproductive Health president Christian LoBue said the Supreme Court’s decision “preserves telehealth access to mifepristone for now,” but warned it also “prolongs an untenable state of uncertainty for patients and providers nationwide.” Antiabortion forces are “focused on creating chaos and fear, not improving health outcomes,” she said, urging states to instead focus on strengthening protections for providers, patient privacy and access to medication abortion.
Regardless of what the courts ultimately decide, abortion access advocates, international telehealth providers and community networks say they are prepared to continue helping people access abortion pills.
Either way, the infrastructure for medication abortion access already exists—and it is not disappearing.
This Mother’s Day weekend arrives amid extraordinary legal and political upheaval over reproductive freedom, voting rights and the economic survival of mothers.
A highlight of being in Ireland has been following the local news, especially the robust abortion beat: Irish lawmakers have been waging a loud fight to expand abortion rights—in particular, to ensure unnecessary waiting periods don’t impede access to care.
Breaking headlines from the United States were a dark juxtaposition.
The U.S. is one of only four nations worldwide actively rolling back reproductive rights.
And now we’re threatened with yet another fight: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling late last week aiming to create the most significant setback to abortion access since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision four years ago.
The three-member panel, two of whom are Trump appointees, blocked a 2023 FDA policy allowing mifepristone to be prescribed by telehealth providers and delivered by mail—a decision that applies to all states, whether abortion is legal or not, and where voters have mobilized to pass ballot measures and enshrine reproductive rights in their state constitutions.
This Fifth Circuit ruling is not the final word on the case. The two pharmaceutical companies that make mifepristone, Danco and GenBioPro, immediately filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. On Monday, Justice Samuel Alito announced an administrative stay through May 11, meaning the decision is on hold until at least then, while the justices review the appeal and decide whether the medically unnecessary in-person dispensing requirements can be reimposed for the duration of the litigation.
In the spirit of the fighting Irish, readers should take heart that the community of U.S. abortion providers, advocates and support networks “have shown amazing resilience and tenacity since the Dobbs decision,” according to Kelly Baden of Guttmacher. “They will continue to do what they can do to ensure that everyone, regardless of where they live, can access the abortion care they need.”
So, for now, our citizen mobilization strategy must be twofold: Support those who directly deliver those services and get ready to get loud. The abortion fight shows that access to healthcare, the integrity of science, the rules of democracy, and the right to bodily autonomy are not only all interconnected, but they are all on the ballot this November.