A new study suggests a possible alternative to the abortion pill mifepristone, a drug that continues to be a target of lawsuits and legislation from abortion opponents.
But the potential substitute could further complicate the politics of reproductive health because it is also the key ingredient in a contraceptive morning-after pill.
online slots real money free spinsThe new study, published Thursday in the journal NEJM Evidence, involved a drug called ulipristal acetate, the active ingredient in the prescription contraceptive Ella, one of two types of morning-after pills approved in the United States. (The other, Plan B One-Step, which does not require a prescription, contains a different drug and does not work in a way that would terminate a pregnancy, according to scientific evidence.)
Robinson’s history of comments that have been widely criticized as antisemitic and anti-gay made him a deeply polarizing figure in North Carolina long before his bid for governor was upended last week by a CNN report that he had called himself a “Black NAZI” and praised slavery while posting on a pornographic website between 2008 and 2012. Now, some of his allies are abandoning him. Most of his senior campaign staff members have resigned. The Republican Governors Association said that its pro-Robinson ads would expire tomorrow and that no new ones had been placed. And former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Robinson in the spring, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids,bl777 official” did not mention him once during his rally in the state over the weekend.
In the study, 133 women who were up to nine weeks’ pregnant took twice the dose of the ulipristal acetate contained in Ella, followed by misoprostol, the second drug used in the typical medication abortion regimen. All but four of the women completed the termination of their pregnancies without further intervention, a 97 percent completion rate that is similar to the regimen using mifepristone. (The others finished the process with additional medication or a procedure.)
There were no serious complications, and the study concluded that using ulipristal acetate in the two-drug medication abortion regimen was safe.
Dr. Beverly Winikoff, the lead author of the study and the president of Gynuity Health Projects, a reproductive health research organization, said that after the Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022, she became increasingly interested in a possible role for ulipristal acetate, which has a similar chemical structure to mifepristone.
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