Women can miss or have a late period for a variety of reasons: stress, illness, diet, hormone fluctuation, or pregnancy. Period pills are a way to trigger a “period” whether the woman is pregnant or not. They are the same as abortion pills, containing either mifepristone alone or a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol. However, since a woman can take these drugs to induce a period before confirming that she’s pregnant, doctors can refer to it “period regulation”. By categorizing these medications as “period pills” due to their different usage, it places them in legal ambiguity. The pill will make a woman bleed whether or not she is pregnant and can be taken before a visible fetus develops, so period pills offer a way to restore reproductive autonomy to women.
It’s been over a year since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the spread of reproductive care and abortion access in the U.S. is quickly widening. Just last week, Ohio voted to enshrine abortion access in their constitution and Pennsylvania elected a pro-choice Supreme Court justice; however, many other states are also drastically cutting abortion access and some have completely banned it. The wide variety and lack of precision in the language used in regulation make it hard for advocates and policymakers to create unified solutions to help women across the U.S., but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. Abortion pills are legal in 36 states, but the U.S. District Judge in Texas is working to ban them everywhere.
Regardless of the legality of abortions, they are a largely taboo topic and a very emotional one to many women. There is often an unaddressed mental weight even if a woman is pro-choice, and many women who consider themselves pro-choice struggle with the decision when it comes to getting an abortion. By distinguishing “period pills” from medication-based abortion, we provide greater options to women; with these pills, a woman doesn’t have to know she is pregnant to take the pill. Instead of aborting a fetus, it is simply bringing back a woman’s period.
Period pills and medication abortions work by inducing a miscarriage. If this is done early into a possible pregnancy, before the form of the embryo is visible, women can take the pills before knowing that they are pregnant. This takes away both the social stigma and mental weight having terminated a pregnancy, and could keep women out of legal trouble.
Early pregnancy prevention, or menstrual regulation, has been used historically and is still used in countries where abortions are illegal or hard to get. Before modern healthcare, women didn’t know they were pregnant until the “quickening,” when the women felt the fetus kick, which doesn’t happen until 16-18 weeks into the pregnancy. The emergence of technology that allows us to detect early pregnancies — pregnancy tests and ultrasounds — can give women certainty and answers when they want them, but can also force the truth on them before they want it. The technology has also prompted us to try to pinpoint when life starts, and there is no clear answer. Living in the middle area removes the need for arbitrary deadlines and can give women comfort.
This pill would fill the gap between emergency contraception (Plan B) and abortions. A study conducted between 2015 and 2017 asked women in nine health centers in two U.S. states if they would be interested in using a pill that could terminate a pregnancy without the need for a pregnancy test. The study found that by a large majority, the women would prefer a solution where they did not know if they were pregnant. Some people criticize period pills for feeding into the stigma and shame of abortion and therefore against the efforts to destigmatize reproductive care. Still, others argue the power of giving women full choice outweighs the detriment of the movement in general.
While reclassifying the use of mifepristone and misoprostol as “period pills” will not be a solution to U.S. abortion bans, they are an effort to change the narrative around early pregnancy, women’s choice, and fertility control. They are a way for a woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant to avoid being pregnant before she even knows if she is, and therefore put more control in the woman’s hands.
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