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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.
Between abortion bans and decreasing access to contraception post-Dobbs, women are facing ever-increasing barriers to maintaining control over their reproductive lives, whether ending unwanted pregnancies—or preventing them.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
After reports emerged that two women died as a result of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, abortion opponents are callously using these tragic deaths to fuel false claims that abortion pills are dangerous and to push for FDA removal of mifepristone from the market.
Rather than calling on legislators to clarify life-saving exceptions, abortion opponents are doubling down on misinformation they’ve been peddling for years about the safety of abortion pills.
Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, a panel of experts, including 10 doctors, deemed Amber Nicole Thurman’s death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.
Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light.
Their reviews of individual patient cases are not made public. But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. There are almost certainly others. Though Republican lawmakers who voted for state bans on abortion say the laws have exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” medical experts cautioned that the language is not rooted in science and ignores the fast-moving realities of medicine.
Abortion advocates have created volunteer-run, donor-supported, community-based mutual aid groups around the country to provide free abortion pills to people living in states restricting abortion.
These groups serve people of all ages and gestational stages, using different protocols for people in later pregnancy. As they start their third year of operations, they have mailed abortion medications to over 70,000 people in total.
Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris had their first and only debate on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. According to CNN, Trump spoke for about 42 minutes and 52 seconds, while Harris spoke for 37 minutes and 36 seconds. Trump spoke 39 times to Harris’ 23 times.
Here’s what each candidate said on some of the issues feminists care about—including access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare, the Affordable Care Act, childcare, immigration, racial unity and the economy.
Part one of a three-part series about the 900-plus-page right-wing “misogynistic manifesto”:
Project 2025 promotes traditional heterosexual marriage, stigmatizing single parenthood and same-sex spouses, and cutting programs to support single mothers and their children.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
As abortion access is increasingly being decided by state and federal courts, two reproductive rights attorneys make sense of past rulings and the ongoing fight for reproductive healthcare.
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: Kamala Harris reaffirmed her candidacy for president at the DNC; Republican-appointed judges strike down Biden’s student loan relief plan; a new law bans women from speaking in public in Afghanistan; working moms earn just 71 cents per dollar earned by dads; understanding the orgasm gap; gold-medalist boxer Imane Khelif fights back against racist and sexist abuse; new reproductive rights bills signed into law in Illinois; and more.
At the DNC in Chicago, party leaders approved the 2024 Democratic party platform Monday evening, promising to protect and strengthen women’s rights. The 91-page document is a stark contrast to the Republican platform, which promises to continue the dismantling of women’s rights started during Donald Trump’s first term in office.
Here are some of the parts of the Democratic party platform focused on women’s rights—including restoring abortion access, protecting contraception access, and making the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land.
Texas’ maternal mortality and morbidity review committee was created in 2013 to track and study maternal deaths and near-misses. Dr. Ingrid Skop, a San Antonio OB-GYN, was chosen to represent rural areas on the committee, over an obstetrics nurse from the Rio Grande Valley.
Skop is not just any antiabortion doctor. She is the face of a small but powerful medical lobby that has helped restrict abortion access across the country. Skop has testified to state legislatures and before Congress, and been called as an expert witness in court cases. She is one of the doctors who sued to have mifepristone, a common abortion-inducing drug, moved off the market, a case that ultimately failed at the U.S. Supreme Court.