Carter Sherman

So I wanted to bring you a fact you might not know.

In the years since the U.S.

Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortions in the U.S.

have actually gone up, not down.

In 2024, for example, there were more than 1.1 million abortions in the United States, which is the highest number on record in recent years.

Well, I think it speaks to the breadth and the depth of the organizing that advocates have undertaken in the years since Roe fell.

In particular, advocates have worked very hard on expanding access to abortion pills, and they have started mailing pills into states with abortion bans so that even people who live under those bans can still end their pregnancies.

For the anti-abortion movement, though, this isn't as essential a threat.

And recently, the fight over abortion pills made its way all the way back up to the Supreme Court.

Well, in a medication abortion, which is abortion that is mediated through drugs, there are two drugs that people tend to take.

The first is called mifepristone.

And you take one dose of it.

24 hours later, you take doses of a second drug called misoprostol.

The mifepristone stops the pregnancy from growing.

The misoprostol contracts the uterus so that it expels the pregnancy.

And it is after that taking of the second drug, misoprostol, that people tend to have the side effects that you associate with an abortion.

Got it.

So bleeding, cramping, nausea, diarrhea, etc.

OK, so that is mifepristone.

Mifepristone is the drug that is at stake right now.