Since January, legislators in at least 20 states have proposed bills that would restrict or ban access to abortion pills approved more than two decades ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Outright bans on dispensing or using the FDA-approved medications have been proposed in Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Washington and Wyoming.
Lawmakers in 13 states also proposed legislation requiring physicians to tell patients that medication abortions can be reversed by administering doses of progesterone, a controversial treatment the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says is not based on science and does not meet clinical standards.
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As of last year, more than half of all states had either banned telehealth for medication abortion or required one or more in-person visits. This year, conservative lawmakers are doubling down on those laws, said Elizabeth Nash, principal policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute.
“As abortion opponents watched what was going on with telehealth during the pandemic, it became apparent to them that access to medication abortion was expanding,” Nash said. “What we’re seeing this year and last is a reaction to that.”
