Marketed in 1973 by the American pharmaceutical company Searle under the name Cytotec, misoprostol was originally prescribed only for gastrointestinal disorders and especially ulcers. The second, misoprostol, is a drug from the prostaglandin family that induces contractions and triggers bleeding.īoth pills are used in combination but many countries do not have access to mifepristone and therefore use misoprostol alone to perform an abortion. It is a synthetic steroid that blocks the action of progesterone, a hormone necessary for the implantation of the egg in the uterus. The first, mifepristone, stops pregnancy. Sydney Calkin, a feminist sociologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, author of "Abortion Pills Go Global." Performing a medical abortion involves taking two medications one or two days apart. Medical abortion is actually "a general term for two different methods of abortion," says Dr. However, the history of these two drugs, at the heart of these recent controversies, is little known. Taken together, they are the most effective way to perform a medical abortion. Wade," the Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a constitutional right in the United States, was overturned last June, the outcry over the questioning of abortion rights has placed two small pills at the center of legal and political battles: mifepristone and misoprostol. Restrictions imposed by lower courts are therefore suspended for the time being. Supreme Court ruled last Friday by provisionally maintaining access to mifepristone. For the Texas judge appointed by Donald Trump, the Food and Drug Administration had incorrectly approved it 23 years ago.Īlmost simultaneously, in Washington State, Judge Thomas Rice, appointed by the Obama administration, had for his part considered that mifepristone was "safe and effective" and had acceded to the request of 17 Democratic states by keeping the drug on sale.įaced with this legal hodgepodge, the U.S. Two separate rulings issued one after the other on April 7, have made abortion rights advocates in the United States hold their breath.įirst, the suspension by the ultraconservative judge of Texas Matthew Kacsmaryk, of the marketing authorization throughout the United States, of mifepristone, this abortion pill widely used in the country.
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