The abortion pill may be the most common method of U.S. elective pregnancy termination, but many Americans still have concerns about its safety, according to a newly released poll.
An Americans United for Life/YouGov poll unveiled Thursday showed that 86% of respondents support having healthcare providers educate patients and obtain informed consent before prescribing mifepristone, one of two pills in the abortion protocol.
More than two-thirds of adults, or 68%, agreed that patient safety should take priority over ease of access in determining how mifepristone is dispensed.
Only 15% favored prioritizing ease of access.
Virtually the same percentage, or 67%, said there should be “stronger safeguards” on mifepristone after being told about a 2025 Ethics and Public Policy Center study showing that 11% of women experienced serious complications after taking the drug, including sepsis, infection and hemorrhage.
Asked to rank the safety of mifepristone on a scale of 1 to 10, 9% of adults gave the drug a rank of 1, or “Very Safe,” while 11% gave it a 10, or “Very Unsafe.”
A plurality of 41% said they were unsure.
Support for expanding mifepristone’s reach was also less than overwhelming.
A plurality of 47% said they support having mifepristone available in the United States as a prescription drug, while 26% were opposed. Another 27% were unsure.
The polling comes with the Food and Drug Administration under pressure to reinstate the restrictions on mifepristone killed by the Biden administration.
The Democratic president’s FDA allowed mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth and shipped by mail without an in-person medical visit, which is still the current regulatory standard.
John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, said the polling shows Americans are more concerned about safety than access when it comes to mifepristone.
“When the Biden administration removed in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone, they removed any guarantee that women receive informed consent,” Mr. Mize said in a statement.
“Americans predominantly agree that safety and informed consent should be the highest priority, and now we have the polling to show that the abortion pill is no exception,” he said. “Increased safeguards are popular considering the risks at hand and align with the best interest of women nationwide.”
Planned Parenthood of America has argued that mifepristone is safer than Tylenol, an assertion the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute has attributed to “false methodology,” because complications from mifepristone result from the drug’s intended and prescribed use while Tylenol complications arise from its misuse.
Sarah Zagorkski, the AUL’s senior director of public relations and communications, said that safety took a back seat to availability following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent abortion’s legal status back to the states.
“Since the Dobbs decision, abortion advocates have tried to convince women that access matters more than our own safety,” she said. “More than two-thirds of Americans have rejected that deception. We still have a long way to go in educating the public on the disconnect between their beliefs and the policies that continue to leave women vulnerable.”
The FDA approved mifepristone for ending pregnancies up to seven weeks’ gestation in 2000, but safeguards were loosened significantly under the Obama and Biden administrations.
The agency now allows mifepristone to be prescribed to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks’ gestation, while the number of required in-person medical visits has been reduced from three to zero.
The pro-choice Guttmacher Institute reported that 63% of abortions in 2023 were carried out using abortion pills, up from 53% in 2020.
The nationwide poll of 1,000 U.S. adults included a sample size of 39% Democrats, 39% Republicans, and 22% independent voters. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.
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