No, Abortion Drugs Aren’t Banned in Oklahoma

An Oklahoma judge said Wednesday that
he won’t block a state law concerning the use of
abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Several news
outlets, including Reuters, reported
that abortion pills would now be banned in the state,
but this is not correct. Under the
new law, mifepristone and misoprostol—together known as the
“Mifeprex regimen”—are still permitted as long as doctors prescribe
them according to Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
protocol. 

This is, in itself, no win from a reproductive
freedom standpoint: the FDA-approved
regimen includes more restrictions on who can take the drugs
and how they do so than is currently accepted medical practice. The
Guttmacher Institute calls it
“an outdated regimen” that “prohibits alternative,
evidence-based protocols in wide use for at least the past
decade.” 

Under FDA protocol, which hasn’t been updated since its approval
in 2000, these medications can only be taken within seven weeks of
the start of a woman’s last period. Doctors and medical groups now
say the drugs are safe and effective through the ninth week of
pregnancy. 

The FDA-approved Mifeprex regimen also stipulates that all drugs
be taken in the presence of a physician. Since the regimen requires
taking the pills three days apart, that means a woman will have to
make a repeat (and unnecessary) visit back to a clinic merely to
swallow a pill. In most places it’s permissible to take the first
pill at the clinic and the follow-up pill at home.

The third major difference between now-typical protocol and the
FDA regimen is dosage: the FDA requires a 600 milligram dose of
mifepristone, while 200 milligrams is sufficient and standard. So
under Oklahoma’s new law, women seeking non-surgical abortions will
be required to take more of a drug than is necessary for its
effectiveness. 

Republicans in the Oklahoma legislature say all of this is to
ensure women’s safety. 

In 2011, the legislature passed a somewhat similar law, only
this one banned all off-label use of abortion-inducing
drugs. Because misoprostol was initially approved and introduced as
an ulcer medication, this would have prohibited its use in inducing
abortion. Aside from mifepristone, there are no other
abortion-inducing drugs currently approved in America, and
mifepristone only works properly in conjunction with misoprostol.
So the 2011 law would have essentially banned non-surgical
abortion. It was found
unconstituional by a district court and
eventually the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

The new law—passed in April and scheduled to take effect
November 1—”fixed the issues that the court had,” said its author,
Rep. Randy Graud (R-Oklahoma City).

District Court Judge Robert Stuart hasn’t yet ruled on the
merits of the law, but he indicated in court on Wednesday that he
would deny a motion for temporary injunction brought by the
Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice and Reproductive
Services of Tulsa. However, he said he will temporarily suspend
portions of the law that subject physicians to legal liability. As
written, the law allows not only women but also maternal
grandparents and “the father of the unborn child who was the
subject of the abortion” (if they’re married) to bring an action
against physicians who perform an abortion “in knowing or reckless
violation” of the law.