Despite the death of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the anti-abortion movement’s unrelenting efforts, banning abortion still does not mean people stop needing abortion care. In 2024, 1.14 million abortions were performed in the U.S., and in 2023, the abortion pill mifepristone was used in two-thirds of all abortions. And, this week, a new report and a new lawsuit once again prove why mifepristone is more crucial and more vulnerable than ever.
On Tuesday, the nonprofit Society of Family Planning (SFP) released new #WeCount data—a project that began in 2022 to track abortions—and revealed that telehealth abortions accounted for 27% of abortions from January to June 2025. It’s a slight increase from 25% at the end of 2024, and a massive jump from 5% in spring 2022. The report also found that shield laws—which allow providers and doctors from states where abortion is allowed to prescribe abortion pills to patients living in states where abortion is banned—accounted for nearly 15,000 abortions per month.
“It’s clear that people still and will always need abortion care. Abortion pills via telemedicine have become a vital lifeline, especially for people trapped in states that ban abortion,” Liz Wagner, Senior Federal Policy Counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel in a statement. “That’s why the anti-abortion movement is so hellbent in trying to restrict access to abortion pills.”
Alas, because no abortion rights high lasts longer than few minutes in this wretched country, on Tuesday, Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas) and AG James Uthmeier (R-Fla.) filed a lawsuit against the FDA to ban the abortion pill. And it’s nearly identical to the one filed by AGs Kris Kobach (R-Kansas), Catherine Hanaway (R-Miss.), and Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) less than a month ago. Nightmare collab, much?
Florida v. FDA wants the FDA to reverse the two approvals of a generic version of mifepristone—the most recent approval being in September—reverse the changes that allowed the pill to be mailed and distributed at pharmacies, and just reverse the agency’s 2000 approval of the pill altogether. In September, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bowed to Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-Minn.) beloved junk science “study” about the abortion pill mifepristone being unsafe and promised to re-review the medication for any “adverse effects.” Though Makary has reportedly since told the agency to stall the review until after the 2026 midterms.
“Texas and Florida leading this new case underscores that the fight has always been about banning abortion care nationwide,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson told Jezebel in a statement.
Mifepristone is safe—safer than Viagra and Tylenol, and over 200 medical experts have denounced Hawley’s bogus “study” that’s been used to wage war against the abortion pill since it was released in April.
“The U.S. is becoming a tale of two countries in terms of abortion access and abortion policy,” Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor and a public health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, told the New York Times this week. But “all of this legislation will never take away from the fact that women will continue to need abortion care, and continue to get abortion care.”
