In a victory for women’s health advocates, the Food and Drug Administration Thursday announced that it will allow for the permanent ability of people seeking an approved medication to cause an abortion to get the drug by mail, without having to pick up the drug in-person, CNN reports.
The move to make the two-pill treatment easier to obtain appears to be a direct result of the anti-choice members of the Supreme Court likely to overturn Roe v. Wade in the coming months. The FDA had temporarily lifted the requirement that patients pick up the medication at a doctor’s office or pharmacy.
“Covid just gave us this kind of natural experiment to demonstrate that no, in fact, there is no medically justifiable reason to require patients to come into a clinic and pick up a pill that they are going to turn around and take at home,” said Kristen Moore, the director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project.