New Research Makes Wild Suggestion: The Abortion Pill Could Be Over the Counter

Just a few months after scientists at JAMA affirmed that

1. mifepristone is safe and
2. more than a decade’s worth of FDA studies were based on science and not politics, the medical journal on Monday dropped yet another banger declaring pretty much the same fucking thing. Except they took it a step further: there’s no real reason abortion pills shouldn’t be available over the counter. Get the popcorn out, folks!

We’re counting down the minutes until Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) throws another bitch fit.

The paper points to how mifepristone and misoprostol—the two most common pills taken in a medication abortion—meet the FDA criteria for over-the-counter sales. “It’s time that the general public understands that this could be a reality,” Dr. Daniel Grossman, one of the study’s 13 co-authors, told NPR.

“There’s so much discussion about the restrictions on medication abortion that are not evidence-based,” he continued. “It’s exciting to see science pointing us in another direction, where access could be expanded.”

Not evidence-based is… a generous take. Hawley’s spent the last year amplifying a bogus far-right study that misinterpreted data to wrongfully conclude that mifepristone is not safe. (The study was denounced by over 200 experts.) He used the non-peer-reviewed “study” to push FDA Commissioner Marty Makary into ordering a review of the pill.

Makary said he would, but he’s been dragging his feet, reportedly due to the midterms, and Hawley’s pissed.

Meanwhile, researchers are doing actual research.

The JAMA study, conducted across five clinics in Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado in 2024, asked 168 patients already seeking a medication abortion to assess their own eligibility using a prototype over-the-counter package and questionnaire. Their answers were then compared with those of their doctors. “We found that people did a really good job at self-assessing their eligibility,” Grossman told NPR, adding that about 88% of participants and clinicians reached the same conclusion about eligibility.

“[It] is not going to be the definitive study that’s going to convince the FDA to move this over-the-counter, but it does start to point in a direction to suggest that this might make scientific sense and it deserves further research,” he said.