FDA OKs Telehealth Use for Medication Abortions

The US Food & Drug Administration will permanently allow people to receive abortion-causing medications by mail, as long as they've first had a telehealth examination by a doctor.

The US Food & Drug Administration has announced it will permanently allow patients to receive abortion-causing medications by mail following a telehealth examination.

The agency’s action expands access to abortion services for women who face barriers to in-person care, and places telehealth squarely in the middle of the ongoing abortion debate. It comes as the Supreme Court reviews abortion laws and conservative states move to make it illegal.

The FCC had expanded access to the abortion-caused drug mifepristone during the pandemic, allowing care providers to meet with patients via telehealth instead of in person, then issue prescriptions via mail. The US Supreme Court blocked that measure in March 2021, putting back into place FDA guidelines that required doctors and patients to meet in person before any medications could be prescribed.

This past April, the Biden administration announced it would lift its restrictions on the use of mifepristone by changing the way the drug is classified. Mifepristone was approved for use in 2000, but shortly afterward was placed on the FDA’s Risk Evaluations and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) protocol, which requires that drugs determined to be risky be dispensed in a healthcare setting under the direct supervision of a certified care provider, and that patients be advised of the drug’s dangers. This week’s ruling now lists the drug as “safe and effective when used to terminate a pregnancy in accordance with the revised labeling.”

Demand for medication abortions had been growing, due to aggressive efforts to shut down clinics and outlaw the procedure and the stresses placed in in-person care by the pandemic. According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost 40 percent of all abortions were conducted with medication in 2017, up from only 5 percent in 2001.

Telehealth advocates and pro-abortion rights groups like Planned Parenthood have long argued that telehealth should be a part of abortion care, by allowing providers to conduct medication abortions and remotely monitor patients, because many women in underserved and rural areas don’t have access to in-person treatments.