The Right Is Frothing Over a New Medication Abortion Study

These statements aren’t true. “Ella” is only the 30 milligram dose, and the study participants got twice that amount. Importantly, they also took misoprostol, which is a very effective abortion-inducing drug on its own and is used around the world in the face of abortion bans, said Daniel Grossman, an ob-gyn and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. (Grossman was not involved in the study but did write an accompanying editorial.)

Misoprostol makes the cervix open and causes uterine contractions, inducing a miscarriage. It’s the commonality in every medication abortion protocol that’s been frequently used or seriously studied—it’s taken alongside mifepristone, methotrexate, letrozole, or, again, on its own, Grossman said. “Misoprostol is doing the bulk of the work of causing a medication abortion, regardless of the regimen,” he said. “Misoprostol on its own, unlike mifepristone on its own, is an effective abortion-inducing regimen, and it is one that’s recommended by the World Health Organization.” Misoprostol-only abortions can be more than 93 percent effective with repeated doses, compared to between 50 and 60 percent effectiveness of mifepristone alone, he said.

As Angel Foster, a health science professor at the University of Ottawa, told The Atlantic in 2022, “We talk about mifepristone as ‘the abortion pill,’ but I think it’s more appropriate to think of it as a pre-treatment or an adjunct therapy. Because it’s really the misoprostol that’s doing the lion’s share of the work.”