Self-Managed Medication Abortion: Expanding the Available Options for U.S. Abortion Care

As a result of the REMS, a unique model of telemedicine has emerged in which a Lifting the REMS could significantly expand access patient visits a clinic or medical office that stocks to medication abortion and increase the options mifepristone and consults with an off-site provider available to people seeking abortion care. [...] practice nurses, can safely provide medication abortion.18–20 In addition, 19 states require the clini- A person’s ability to self-administer mifepristone cian providing medication abortion to be physical- and misoprostol after receiving instructions from a ly present with the patient, effectively banning the provider is well established,22 and there is evi- use of telemedicine to prescribe the me. [...] In ness using pregnancy tests and checklists if, again, a self-management model, anyone who needs to there is a source of accurate information and ac- terminate a pregnancy would be able to legally cess to a provider at any stage.21 access mifepristone and misoprostol without a requirement to see a health care provider or phar- To fully integrate self-managed medication macist first. [...] manufacturer to apply to the FDA to change the drug’s status, a process that requires the In a 2015 guideline, WHO identified three indi- manufacturer’s interest in making its products vidual components of self-managing a medication available OTC and also its willingness to invest abortion during the first trimester: self-assessing significant resources into the application process. [...] As a result, a group of lawyers committed to repro- ductive health, rights and justice formed the SIA OTC status alone will not ensure the success of Legal Team in 2015 in order to “transform the legal self-managed medication abortion in the United landscape so people who end their own pregnan- States.