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.
AP Photo/Allen G. Breed
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.
Vector Illustration
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.
A demonstrator outside the Supreme Court building expresses fear that other precedents will fall, too.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
The justices who decided to overturn the abortion rights precedent of Roe v. Wade explained their reasoning, and signaled other precedents could be reversed as well.
Temporary security fencing surrounds the U.S. Supreme Court building, ahead of its decision on abortion.
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State supreme courts have a relatively low profile in the US. That’s going to change now that they will be under political pressure to decide whether abortion is protected in state constitutions.
A half-century of reproduction rights upended by the Supreme Court.
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By a 6 to 3 majority, the Supreme Court decided to overrule the landmark Roe decision and end almost 50 years of access to abortion being a constitution right.
The overturning of Roe will affect the lives of millions of women.
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Scholars explain how the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion is likely to affect women’s health.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signs a law in 2019 that includes a so-called ‘trigger’ provision to ban abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
AP Photo by Summer Balentine
There are 13 states with so-called ‘trigger laws’ that aim to ban abortion now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. But what actually must happen for the laws to take effect?