Mifepristone Label Laws and Trends in Use: Recent Experiences in Four U.S. States

Contraception; 2015 Sep; 92(3):182-5; doi:10.1016/j.contraception.2015.06.017. Published: June 23, 2015.

Since mifepristone was approved in 2000, the rate of medical abortions has risen fairly steadily from just 6% of all eligible abortions in 2001 to 29% in 2011. If unconstrained access to medical abortions were the norm, rather than the exception, medical abortions might constitute a higher percentage of all abortions. Furthermore, the on-label use of mifepristone involves use of an outdated regimen of 600 mg that is more expensive and arguably less effective, with greater side effects than the evidence-based regimen of 200 mg that is currently the world-wide standard of care. In order to examine further the possible effect of mifepristone-specific restrictions, researchers documented trends in mifepristone use over a 10-year period (2004–2014) in four large US states: California, New York, Ohio and Texas.