The FDA has made changes to the label for mifepristone, a pill used to induce an abortion, giving women more of a choice when it comes to making pregnancy decisions.
Specifically, the FDA has approved new label changes which allow women to use the pill up 70 days into the pregnancy, according to The New York Times. This change from the previous guidelines extends the time period women can take the pill by three weeks.
There have also been changes in regards to the dosage of medication. Research now shows that a smaller dosage is just as effective as the larger dose that the FDA had been recommending for years. The new prescribed dosage is 200 milligrams as opposed from 600 mg, according to The Washington Post. One of the benefits of the smaller dosage is less of a possibility of negative side effects.
These old requirements caused the number of women having medically induced abortions to fall by 75 percent in the year 2012, according to research at the University of California-San Francisco, reported in The Guardian. The costliness of the pill excluded many poorer women and women of color from having the same options as wealthier women.
Several states have laws mandating that the original FDA label be followed, despite new research surfacing that nullified the label. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists publicly announced their support of the FDA change. “Medication abortion has been subject to legislative attacks in various states across the country, including mandated regimens that do not reflect the current scientific evidence. We hope that these states take the FDA label into account,” they said in a statement to The New York Times.
This is a win for pro-choice advocates, who have been fighting for the label to be changed since the 1990s.