Anti-abortion groups furious as FDA approves generic abortion pill

Abortion rights supporters hail win for evidence-backed medicine as Evita Solutions’ generic version of mifepristone given approval

In a move that has left anti-abortion advocates reeling, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly approved a request to manufacture a new abortion pill earlier this week.

Thanks to the approval, a company called Evita Solutions will be able to manufacture its generic version of mifepristone, one of two drugs typically used in most US medication abortions. A generic version of mifepristone, which was first approved as a brand-name drug in 2000, is already available on the market.

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Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe

Study finds prosecutors targeting low-income women mainly in US south – and figure likely to be an undercount

In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.

Of the 412 cases tracked by Pregnancy Justice, the vast majority took place in the US south, targeted low-income women and involved allegations that women broke laws against child abuse, endangerment or neglect, according to the research, which was compiled by the reproductive justice group. About 300 prosecutions took place in Alabama and Oklahoma. In 16 cases, law enforcement charged women with homicide.

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Republican representative’s ectopic pregnancy clashes with Florida abortion law

Kat Cammack blames left’s fearmongering after medical staff hesitated to give her drugs needed to end pregnancy

A Florida Republican congresswoman is blaming fearmongering on the left for the reluctance of hospital staff to give her the drugs she needed to end an ectopic pregnancy that threatened her life.

Kat Cammack went to the emergency room in May 2024 where it was estimated she was five weeks into an ectopic pregnancy, there was no heartbeat and her life was at risk. Doctors determined she needed a shot of methotrexate to help expel her pregnancy but since Florida’s six week abortion ban had just taken effect medical staff were worried about losing their licenses or going to jail if they did.

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Calls for abortion law change grew louder as number of prosecutions rose

While parliament was moving towards more liberal abortion laws more women were being arrested or investigated

Calls for decriminalisation of abortions have been growing louder in recent years – in line with a growing number of women being prosecuted for terminating their pregnancies.

Until 2022, it is believed that only three women had ever been convicted of having an illegal abortion in the 150 years since 1861, when the procedure was made illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act.

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FBI to reinvestigate 2023 White House cocaine find and leak of supreme court Dobbs draft

Agency also announced new inquiry into pipe bombs found outside Democratic and Republican offices in 2021

The FBI will launch new investigations into the 2023 discovery of a bag of cocaine at the White House during Joe Biden’s term, as well as into pipe bombs discovered at Democratic and Republican party headquarters before the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump, and the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion before the historic overturning of national abortion rights with the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.

Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster turned deputy director of the FBI, made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on any progress in looking into the old cases. The incidents have been popular talking points on America’s political right wing and among conspiracy theorists.

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RFK Jr orders mifepristone review as anti-abortion groups push for ban

Health secretary cites ‘new data’ that emerged from flawed study conservatives are using to pressure US government

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Wednesday that he had directed the FDA to review the regulations around the abortion pill mifepristone.

The review, he said, was necessary due to “new data” – data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US anti-abortion groups are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill, if not pull it from the market entirely.

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Key court hearing as Alabama threatens prosecutions over abortion support

Experts say victory for state could give green light for other states to attack those who help women travel for procedure

A bellwether test of states’ ability to prosecute people over abortions that take place across state lines will hold a critical hearing on Wednesday, when Alabama abortion rights supporters will square off against the state attorney general over his threats to prosecute groups that help women travel for the procedure.

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, clearing the way for Alabama to ban virtually all abortions, Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall repeatedly suggested that abortion rights activists who help people go out of state for abortions could be charged as participants in an illegal conspiracy. The Yellowhammer Fund, an abortion fund that helped people pay for the procedure, and the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic that pivoted to providing services like miscarriage management, joined with other abortion rights advocates to sue Marshall over his comments.

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Wyoming governor vetoes ultrasound requirement for medication abortions

Republican Mark Gordon says bill ‘goes too far’ despite having signed several anti-abortion laws in past three years

A bill that would have required women seeking medication abortions to get ultrasounds has been vetoed by Wyoming’s Republican governor, who questioned whether it was reasonable and necessary especially for victims of rape and incest.

“Mandating this intimate, personally invasive, and often medically unnecessary procedure goes too far,” Mark Gordon wrote in a letter explaining his veto late on Monday.

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Trump signs order to reinstate ‘global gag rule’ on abortion aid

Federal rule also known as ‘Mexico City policy’ halts US funds to overseas groups that provide abortion services

Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order reinstating a federal rule known as the “Mexico City policy” which halts US aid from flowing to groups that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for abortion rights overseas.

The policy, which was first instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, is typically implemented whenever a Republican president wins the White House and rescinded whenever a Democrat wins. But this whiplash has major implications for abortion and reproductive healthcare around the world.

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Permanent contraception surged after Roe v Wade overturned, study finds

Young adults living in states likely to ban abortion obtained tubal sterilizations and vasectomies in months after ruling

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, permanent contraception in the form of tubal sterilizations and vasectomies surged among young adults living in states likely to ban abortion, new research released on Monday found.

Compared to May 2022, when the opinion overturning Roe leaked, August 2022 saw 95% more vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations performed on people between the ages of 19 and 26, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan.

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Why speech could be a target for the anti-abortion movement in 2025

The anti-abortion movement is looking at ways to control information about how and where to obtain abortions

The next front in the US abortion wars may be what people are allowed to say about it.

More than two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, US abortions are on the rise, thanks in large part to the spread of abortion pills and travel across state lines. This has infuriated anti-abortion advocates, who have proposed policies to help the incoming Trump administration curtail the mailing of abortion pills and targeted individuals and groups that help women get out-of-state abortions. In a sign of how the issue is pitting states against one another, Texas earlier this monthsued a New York-based doctor who allegedly provided a telehealth abortion to a Texan woman.

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Idaho’s ‘abortion trafficking’ law partly revived by US appeals court

State can enforce law against those who harbor or transport a minor across state lines without parental consent

Idaho can enforce a first-of-its-kind “abortion trafficking” law against those who harbor or transport a minor to get an abortion out-of-state without parental consent, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday.

But the San Francisco-based 9th US circuit court of appeals in its ruling blocked a part of the law that prohibits “recruiting” a minor to get an abortion.

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Emboldened anti-abortion groups create wishlist for second Trump term

‘Make America pro-life again’ legislation includes banning abortion pills entirely and outlawing telehealth abortions

The anti-abortion movement is ready for its comeback in 2025.

With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, complete with a Republican-dominated Congress, anti-abortion groups are unfurling ambitious lists of policies they hope to see enacted under a sympathetic administration.

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‘We can win Florida’: Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff rallies for VP in red state

Second gentleman campaigns in Florida, attacking Donald Trump and Project 2025, despite state being reliably red

In terms of presidential elections at least, Florida has fallen a long way since its heady days as the ultimate swing state. Seven cycles on from the 537-vote cliffhanger in 2000 that was finally resolved when the US supreme court placed George Bush in the White House, Florida is so reliably red, and Donald Trump so confident of picking up its 30 electoral college votes, that he has barely campaigned here.

For the same reason, the Sunshine state has not featured on Kamala Harris’s schedule either. So some eyebrows were raised when second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the vice-president’s husband, rolled up on Wednesday to rally Democrats in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, on a break from stumping in the battleground states of the north-east.

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Melania Trump’s abortion views baffle both sides: ‘Hard to follow the logic’

In her memoir, former first lady has voiced support for the procedure, the right to which was overturned by a court of her husband’s justices

The revelation on Wednesday evening that Melania Trump’s forthcoming memoir includes a full-throated defense of abortion rights, an issue her husband Donald Trump has repeatedly flip-flopped on during his presidential campaign, left people on both sides of the issue less than impressed.

“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,” Melania Trump wrote in her memoir. “I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”

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Doctors issue stark warning as Louisiana reclassifies abortion pills

Officials class mifepristone and misoprostol as ‘controlled substances’ – which medics say could imperil women’s lives

Two common abortion pills are, as of Tuesday, classified as “controlled substances” in Louisiana, due to a first-of-its-kind law that medical professionals warn will endanger the lives of women by restricting medication used to treat postpartum hemorrhage and other conditions.

Louisiana, which already bans abortion, passed a law reclassifying mifepristone and misoprostol as schedule IV drugs – a designation typically reserved for drugs that carry a risk of abuse or dependence. People caught with the drugs without a valid prescription could face up to five years in prison, although pregnant women who procure it for their own use are exempted from punishment under the law.

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Democrats unite to center reproductive rights as Republicans flail on abortion

Harris campaign seeks to press advantage on powerful motivator, especially in states with abortion on the ballot

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.

At the party’s convention last month, Democrats spotlighted the harrowing stories of women placed in medical peril as a result of post-Roe abortion bans in their states. Last week, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop “reproductive freedom” bus tour across several battleground states, kicking off in Trump’s “back yard”, miles from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in south Florida.

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‘A healthcare crisis’: Harris takes aim at Trump on anniversary of Roe’s fall

Biden and Harris give forceful campaign statements blaming Trump for ending right to abortion access

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris marked the second anniversary of the US supreme court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade with forceful campaign statements that laid the blame squarely on Donald Trump for ending the national right to abortion.

In a video released on Monday, Biden pledged to restore the right to an abortion and “protect American freedom” if he is re-elected.

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Kamala Harris says Trump ‘guilty’ of ‘stealing’ abortion rights at rally – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on abortion news in the US, read our coverage here.

Vice President Kamala Harris just took the stage to address a crowd at the University of Maryland, her first event of the day to mark the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

Maryland is a deep-blue state with an abortion referendum on the ballot and a surprisingly competitive Senate race that could help determine the balance of power in Congress. Ahead of Harris’s remarks, Maryland Democrats and reproductive rights leaders emphasized the stakes in November.

Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee for the state’s open seat, said Trump was “proud as a peacock” for setting in motion the fall of Roe, and warned that Republicans saw the state as an opportunity to win back control of the chamber.

Speaking before Harris, she said of Republicans: “Make no mistake about it. They would take the first opportunity to ban abortion nationwide.”

Alsobrooks faces Larry Hogan, the state’s former two-term Republican governor, who, in a sign of the fast-shifting politics of abortion, has recast himself as “pro-choice” and said he supports the state’s abortion referendum.

Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, urged voters who want to protect access to abortion to send Alsobrooks with him to the Senate.

“Larry Hogan’s undergoing some election year conversion like none other I’ve ever seen,” the senator said, pointing to Hogan’s record as governor, when he vetoed a law that would have expanded abortion access.

“A vote for Larry Hogan is a vote to put the Maga Republicans in charge of the United States Senate.”

In November, Maryland voters will decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to abortion and “reproductive freedom,” in the state’s constitution. It is widely expected to pass because of broad support for protecting abortion access, which is legal in the state.

Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions. Instead, he proudly takes credit for overturning Roe.
In a court of law, that would be called an admission. Some would say, a confession.

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Over half of US women on probation or parole need permission to travel for abortion – study

Policies are ‘one-two punch’ for women caught in criminal justice system, report’s author says

The number of women on probation or parole who must seek permission to travel for an abortion more than doubled to 635,000 in two years since the supreme court overturned the federal right to abortion, a new report finds.

Fourteen states have near-total abortion bans and 21 restrict the procedure. Together with near ubiquitous travel restrictions imposed by probation and parole, more than half of women on probation or parole in the US must seek permission to travel before obtaining an abortion.

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