![]() We're against the pill," says Rosita Rodriguez, wearing a red T-shirt with the words "Keep Calm and Pray On." "We're against anything that goes against the moment of conception. On a recent weeknight, a group of Catholic women march around the Whole Woman's Clinic in McAllen, Texas, praying the rosary. To abortion foes, both procedures are equally bad. Researchers say more women are asking for it, and more abortion providers are offering it. ![]() Today, in the U.S., just over a third of women who get abortions in the first nine weeks use medication, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that studies abortion issues. Mifepristone was first available in Europe as RU-486 and was approved by the FDA in 2000 for use in medical abortions in the United States. "They were in their home they were in charge of their own bodies." "Many women felt that it was a more natural feeling, a more personal experience that didn't have to be so clinical and surgical," says Rachel Bergstrom-Carlson, manager of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin. Staff of Whole Woman's Health, which has three Texas clinics that perform abortions, say they have seen requests for medical abortions jump from 1 in 10 patients to more than half of all patients.Īnd Planned Parenthood has noted a fourfold increase in women seeking the abortion drug regimen at its five clinics in Texas. Effectively, the FDA's updated labeling gave Texas women an end-run around the state Legislature's anti-abortion posture. And they can take the medication regimen up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy before, it was only seven weeks. Use of the abortion drug regimen in Texas fell sharply after the law passed.īut the FDA's current label on abortion medication, updated in March, now requires fewer doctor visits, meaning women can take most of the pills at home. Supreme Court, had the effect of closing more than 20 clinics that performed abortions in the state.īelieving the longtime FDA rules on abortion pills were plenty strict, the Texas legislators also included in the law a requirement that doctors strictly follow the agency's guidance. The Texas law, which is now before the U.S. And, according to the law, all abortions - medical as well as surgical - must be done at the clinic. The Texas law requires clinics that perform abortions to meet the same strict standards as ambulatory surgical centers, and requires doctors at the clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. In 2013, the Republican-controlled statehouse passed the Texas Omnibus Abortion Bill, imposing sweeping new restrictions on surgical and medical abortions. Texas is hostile territory for abortion rights. With the pill I feel like it's more to-yourself." And a lot of times you don't want too many people knowing what's going on. "The reason that I would choose the pill versus the surgical procedure is the comfort of your home," she says, "without you having to deal with coming to the office and then being hounded outside by protesters or what have you. ![]() Like more and more women who choose abortion in Texas, she's decided against surgery. She sits in a black easy chair in a room with soothing mauve walls at a Whole Woman's Health clinic. (These drugs are not to be confused with the emergency contraception often called the morning-after pill or Plan B.)Ī 25-year-old child care worker who asks to be identified by her initials, H.D., has opted to terminate her seven-week pregnancy under a doctor's care in San Antonio. is usually prescribed as a combination of mifepristone (Mifeprex) and misoprostol that, when taken in a two-step process over 48 hours or so, stops a pregnancy from developing and induces a miscarriage. More and more young women from Texas are walking across the international bridge for risky, do-it-yourself medical abortions with misoprostol that lack the second drug, mifepristone, and also lack the guidance and supervision by a doctor that the women would get in the U.S.Ī surgical abortion ends an undesired pregnancy by removing the fetus and placenta from the woman's uterus. One of the two medications in the regimen - misoprostol - is easy to get without a prescription in Mexico and significantly less expensive there. clinics has not slowed brisk sales of abortion drugs south of the border, in Mexican pharmacies. However, the recent spike in the number of women choosing legal, non-surgical abortions in U.S. In March, the Food and Drug Administration simplified rules on abortion medication, allowing patients to take the standard regimen of abortion drugs later in a pregnancy. Women who want an abortion in deeply conservative Texas have slightly more choice these days than they had a few months ago. Luis Alberto de la Rosa says he sells lots of misoprostol, a drug used in abortions and in ulcer treatment, to women from Texas who come to his Miramar Pharmacy in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico.
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