Senate Democrats are urging one of the manufacturers of the abortion pill mifepristone to update the drug's labeling to make it easier for patients to access the medication to reduce complications from a miscarriage in states with restrictive abortion laws.
Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) are leading the coalition in pressuring Danco Laboratories to add miscarriage management to its labeling for mifepristone, arguing that without it, health providers are left "without clear legal guidance," making it harder for those experiencing early pregnancy loss to access the drug in some states.
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"Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade, several states have restricted — and sometimes fully banned — medication abortion, which requires the use of mifepristone and misoprostol," the senators wrote in a letter to the manufacturer. "Because miscarriage management is not included as an indication to the mifepristone label, health care providers are left without clear legal guidance. As a result, patients experiencing early pregnancy loss who need mifepristone cannot easily access this critical treatment, placing them at risk of serious injury and death."
Democratic senators claim that updating the label would make the drug more accessible to patients in states that restrict or ban abortions without putting healthcare providers at risk of criminal action.
Abortion is now severely restricted or banned in over a dozen states, and numerous states have laws governing abortion medication regarding who can prescribe it and where.
Mifepristone has been approved since 2000 by the Food and Drug Administration to induce an abortion through 10 weeks of pregnancy. The drug has also commonly been used in combination with misoprostol for managing an early miscarriage. A 2018 study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that using mifepristone improved the management of a miscarriage and resulted in fewer complications than misoprostol alone.
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Last month, the FDA denied two citizen petitions regarding accessing mifepristone, including one from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that asked that the agency indicate the abortion medication could be used to reduce complications from a miscarriage.
Mifepristone is the subject of several lawsuits post-Roe, including one in Texas by anti-abortion groups that is seeking to reverse the FDA's decades-old approval of the abortion medication, which the HHS said would "upend the status quo." Medication abortions accounted for roughly half of all abortions in the United States in 2021.