Abortion pills — a combo of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol — are on notice: on April 7, 2023, a federal judge said the FDA’s approval of mifepristone was invalid. And then, not more than an hour later, another federal judge in a separate case said that mifepristone had to stay on the market in certain states. With these two contradictory rulings, mifepristone — and medical abortion, in general — is in the crosshairs. So, today, we want to rewind to an episode we made last year. It looks at these two drugs over the last 40 years, from their origin stories and development, to how their administration from doctors to patients keeps evolving. This story, for us, started…
Special thanks to Mariana Prandini Assis and Pam Belluck.
EPISODE CREDITS
Reported by - Molly Webster, Avir Mitra
Produced by Sarah Qari
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Becca Bressler
CITATIONS:
Articles:
From one of our sources, Abigail Aiken: “Safety and effectiveness of self-managed medication abortion provided using online telemedicine in the United States: A population based study” (https://zpr.io/kG3hNFXM4kb9)
Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Argentine Invasion
Mixtapes to the Moon
Lucy
Selected Shorts
Memory and Forgetting
Small Potatoes
The Distance of the Moon
The Moon Itself
Short Cuts: Drawn Onward
Finding Emilie
Throughline: Dare to Dissent
Staph Retreat
Hold On
G: The World's Smartest Animal
Cheating Death
G: Relative Genius
Zoozve
The Living Room
Our Little Stupid Bodies
Stochasticity
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
This American Life
The Moth
Planet Money
Freakonomics Radio
Stuff You Should Know