Key Points on Chemical Abortions

• Chemical abortions generally involve two drugs: 1) mifepristone, which starves the baby to death by blocking progesterone, and 2) misoprostol, which is taken 24-48 hours later and induces contractions which expel the baby from the mother. The FDA has approved the use of mifepristone through 10 weeks.
• 63% of all abortions are chemical abortions.[1]
• Over 1 in 4 abortions are chemical abortions via telemedicine.[2]
• According to the FDA’s own label for mifepristone, roughly one in 25 women who take chemical abortion drugs (mifepristone and misoprostol) end up in the emergency room.[3]
• A 2025 analysis of 865,727 insurance claims revealed that one in ten women experience a serious adverse event, such as sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event, within 45 days of a mifepristone abortion.[4] This serious adverse event rate of 10.93% is 22 times higher than the “less than 0.5 percent” from clinical trials reported on the drug label.
• In 2023, the Biden Administration removed the FDA requirement that a woman pick up chemical abortion drugs from a clinic, medical office or hospital. Removal of the “in-person dispensing” requirement has resulted in abortion pills being mailed to women across state lines, without the woman ever visiting a provider.
• Coercion and pressure by others is often a factor in a woman’s decision to undergo an abortion. A 2023 study found that in two-thirds of abortions, the abortion was “unwanted, coerced, or otherwise inconsistent with [the woman’s] own values and preferences.”[5]

Mail order chemical abortions exacerbate the prevalence of coercive abortions. Abusive boyfriends, sex traffickers, and others, can easily obtain chemical abortion drugs off the internet and forcibly (or secretly) subject pregnant women to them.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled a list of publicly documented cases in which women were coerced into a chemical abortion. The cases involve pills crushed into food or drink, swapped pills, or coerced consumption and abuse.[6]

Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN) receives over 200 calls per month from women who wish to reverse a chemical abortion. The APRN has seen an increasing number of women reporting that they’ve been coerced or forced to begin a chemical abortion, as well as reports that they were slipped abortion drugs without their knowledge.[7]

• Pending State Legislation. Numerous state legislatures are in the process of enacting legislation pertaining to mail-order chemical abortion drugs, including Iowa (requires chemical abortion drugs to be distributed to the woman at a clinic, medical office, or hospital); Kentucky (allows for the prosecution of someone who “knowingly and unlawfully prescribes, distributes, supplies, sells, or traffics in any quantity of an abortion-inducing drug”); Mississippi (makes it a crime to distribute or dispense abortion-inducing drugs); Nebraska (requires an in-person examination before a physician provides chemical abortion drugs, and a follow-up visit); South Dakota (makes it a crime to distribute or advertise chemical abortion drugs); and West Virginia (allows the funding provided to pregnancy help organizations to be used for abortion pill reversals).

[1] Guttmacher, “Medication Abortion Accounted for 63% of All US Abortions in 2023 – An Increase from 53% in 2020” (March 2024) at https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/03/medication-abortion-accounted-63-all-us-abortions-2023-increase-53-2020

[2]  Society of Family Planning, #WeCount report, April 2022-June 2025 (Dec. 9, 2025) at https://societyfp.org/research/wecount/wecount-june-2025-data/

[3] FDA-Approved Label for Mifepristone (Mifeprex) (2023) at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2023/020687Orig1s025Lbl.pdf

[4] Jamie Bryan Hall & Ryan T. Anderson, The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event, Ethics and Public Policy Center (Apr. 28, 2025) at https://eppc.org/publication/insurance-data-reveals-one-in-ten-patients-experiences-a-serious-adverse-event/

[5] Reardon D C, Rafferty K A, Longbons T (May 11, 2023) The Effects of Abortion Decision Rightness and Decision Type on Women’s Satisfaction and Mental Health. Cureus 15(5): e38882. doi:10.7759/cureus.38882 at https://www.cureus.com/articles/146123-the-effects-of-abortion-decision-rightness-and-decision-type-on-womens-satisfaction-and-mental-health#!/

[6] The Heritage Foundation, “Abortion Pills, Coercion and Abuse,” (Nov. 11, 2025) at https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/abortion-pills-coercion-and-abuse

[7] See the February 2026 amicus brief filed by Heartbeat International in the chemical abortion case, Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration at https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/63d954d4e4ad424df7819d46/6990a8f5ff8f91b7059627ea_Brief%20of%20Heartbeat%20International%20in%20La%20v%20FDA.pdf