2024-03-22 18:02:03
Almost two-thirds of abortions (63%) performed in the United States in 2023 were performed with drugs, reported this Tuesday the Guttmacher Institute, a major research center that defends women’s right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.
The results of this study have been made public a week before a Supreme Court hearing on the restoration, by an ultra-conservative appeals court, of restrictions on access to the abortion pill.
The Guttmacher Institute reports a new increase in the proportion of medical abortions out of the total abortions performed in the official health system: 63% in 2023, compared to 53% in 2020.
This increase is probably due to greater access, particularly the delivery of abortion pills by mail and the possibility of telemedicine consultations, it explained on its website.
The statistics do not take into account “medical abortions that take place outside the official health system, nor abortion pills sent by mail to people in states where abortion is completely prohibited,” he said.
Since the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, abolished the federal guarantee of the right to abortion in June 2022, states have been free to legislate in this area.
About twenty have banned abortion, including pharmacological abortion, or have strictly restricted access to it.
The appeal decision that the Supreme Court will consider next week has restored restrictions on access to mifepristone, one of two pills used in medically induced abortions in the United States.
Currently on hold, the decision would reduce the limit from ten weeks to seven weeks of pregnancy, prohibit the sending of pills by mail and re-oblige them to be prescribed exclusively by a doctor.
When the Supreme Court rules, “it will have to decide whether to ignore the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) 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 large American pharmacy chains, Walgreens and CVS, announced that they would sell mifepristone by prescription in some of the states where abortion is still permitted.
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© Agence France-Presse