(Washington) Nearly two-thirds of abortions (63%) in the United States in 2023 were performed by medication, the Guttmacher Institute, a leading research center that defends women’s right to termination, said Tuesday. voluntary pregnancy (abortion).
The results of this study are being made public one week before a Supreme Court hearing on the reinstatement by an ultraconservative appeals court of restrictions on access to the abortion pill.
The Guttmacher Institute reports a further increase in the share of medical abortions in the total abortions carried out in the official health system: 63% in 2023, compared to 53% in 2020.
This increase is likely due to increased access, including mail-order abortion pills and the possibility of telemedicine consultations, he explains on his site.
These statistics do not take into account “medical abortions that take place outside the official health system or abortion pills sent by mail to people in states where abortion is completely prohibited,” he specifies.
Since the June 2022 reversal of the Supreme Court with a conservative majority abolishing the federal guarantee of the right to abortion, states have had latitude to legislate in this area and around twenty have banned abortion, including medical abortion, or have strictly restricts access.
The appeal decision that the Supreme Court will examine next week reinstated restrictions on access to mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medical abortions in the United States.
Returning to regulations of the American Medicines Agency (FDA) in the name of potential risks yet ruled out by scientific consensus, this decision currently suspended would reduce the limit of ten weeks of pregnancy to seven, would prohibit the sending of tablets by post and would once again make prescription exclusively by a doctor compulsory.
When the Supreme Court rules, “it will either have to decide to ignore the FDA by reinstating unnecessary barriers to access to mifepristone or respect the scientific evidence of its safety and effectiveness,” says the Guttmacher Institute.
Earlier this month, two major American pharmacy chains, Walgreens and CVS, announced that they would sell mifepristone by prescription in some of the states where abortion remains legal.