The Biden administration on Thursday permanently rescinded rules requiring women to obtain abortion drugs in-person, allowing patients to receive pills by mail instead of via specially certified health providers in-person.
The FDA's decision comes after it first announced it would temporarily suspend the rules in April for the duration of the pandemic, reversing a Trump administration policy that the Supreme Court reinstituted in January.
In a letter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in April, acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said the agency found that allowing patients to receive chemical abortion pills via telemedicine and in the mail would not increase risks and would help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.
The FDA’s decision is the latest step in a months-long fight over rules for obtaining mifepristone — one of two drugs used in chemical abortions, the most common method of abortion used in the first ten weeks of pregnancy. By 2017, abortion drugs accounted for 39 percent of abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
ACOG, the American Medical Association, congressional Democrats and other groups had called on the agency to permanently lift the restrictions.
Pro-life lawmakers and advocacy groups had been preparing for the FDA's decision and have proactively worked to ban the pills or make them more difficult to obtain.
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