While anti-abortion rights activists have lobbied politicians to enforce trigger laws in some states, these advocates have not faced opposition in other places.
Demonstrators protest outside the Supreme Court building shortly before the court heard arguments about mifepristone on March 26, 2024.
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EMTALA requires hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to all patients – but Idaho is arguing that its abortion ban means it doesn’t have to allow the procedure, even if it is medically needed.
Pro-abortion rights demonstrators rally in Scottsdale, Ariz., on April 15, 2024.
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There are many outdated laws that states keep on the books, even if they aren’t used. If the Supreme Court overturns legal precedents on rights like same-sex and interracial marriage, that can change.
Pro-abortion rights activists rally in front of the Supreme Court on March 26, 2024, the day justices heard oral arguments about the use of mifepristone.
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Two legal scholars who study abortion-related laws explain what happened at the Supreme Court in a case that could make it harder to get an abortion.
Women who were denied abortions, despite serious pregnancy complications, appear outside the Texas Supreme Court in November 2023, following arguments in a lawsuit they brought against the state.
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Women in Texas and in other states with abortion bans are suing, asking for clarification on when medical exceptions could actually be granted.
A few days after successful fertilization, an embryo becomes a rapidly dividing ball of cells called a blastocyst.
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Scientists can create viable eggs from two male mice. In the wake of CRISPR controversies and restrictive abortion laws, two experts start a dialogue on ethical research in reproductive biology.
In addition to evaluating new drug applications, the FDA also inspects drug manufacturing facilities.
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As the government’s oldest consumer protection agency, the FDA has long butted up against drugmakers, activists and politicians. But undermining its work could be harmful to patient health and safety.
Mifepristone is used together with another pill, misoprostol, in medication abortions.
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Mifepristone’s safety in medication abortions has been well established over more than two decades, but legal wrangling leaves the future of the drug hanging in the balance.
The Supreme Court is the latest court to take up the question of regulating a medication used for abortions.
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The FDA’s allowance for pharmacies to dispense mifepristone will broaden access to the two-pill mifepristone-misoprostol regimen of medication abortion, which is 95% to 98% effective.
An anti-abortion activist prays in front of a Planned Parenthood center in Philadelphia in September 2022.
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Abortion referendums in such states as California and Kentucky provide a way to protect abortion rights at the state level – but voting limitations could undermine the power of the ballot box.
Voters in Michigan said ‘yes’ to Prop 3, a ballot protecting abortion rights.
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Human embryos are far more likely to die than come to term, an evolutionary trait seen across species. Laws granting personhood at conception ignore built-in embryo loss, with potentially grave consequences.
When people who are split on abortion speak directly with each other, various good outcomes – including policy change – can happen.
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Kate W. Isaacs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
When ideological enemies talk across their great divides, something good can happen – it reduces stereotypes and inflammatory language directed at people who don’t agree on the abortion rights issue.
Abortion-rights activists gather in front of the Supreme Court in May 2022 ahead of the Dobbs decision.
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As many as 80% of young people want abortion to be legal, and most disagree with the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. This could lead to high youth voting rates in the 2022 midterms.
In most countries, like the Netherlands, it has become easier to get a legal, safe abortion over the last two decades.
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Only 24 countries today totally ban abortion. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in the US is unlikely to lead other countries to join that list.
Rap songs about abortion are rife with raw emotion.
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Tennessee and Wisconsin are among the states that can jail pregnant women because of illegal substance use, despite major medical groups saying that this practice isn’t effective.