Abortion pills are gaining ground as a method for ending pregnancies,
and opponents are responding
[March 24, 2026]
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
As states that already ban abortion look to further restrict access this
year, much of the focus is on pills sent by out-of-state providers.
A survey released Tuesday helps explain the emphasis. It suggests that
more women in states with bans obtained abortions last year using the
pills prescribed via telehealth than by traveling to places where it's
legal.
Most of the states with the political will to impose broad bans have
already done so in the nearly four years since the U.S. Supreme Court
overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to enforcing them. So far
this year, just one state has a new one.
Here’s a look at where things stand as many state legislatures are
wrapping up or have completed their 2026 sessions.
States are taking steps to make abortion pills harder to get
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, a Republican, signed a bill last week
that makes it a felony to advertise, distribute or sell abortion pills.
Similar measures have cleared both legislative chambers in Mississippi
this year. There, the House and Senate would need to iron out
differences between their versions before it can be sent to the
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.
A survey of state abortion policies from the Guttmacher Institute, which
supports abortion rights, finds that at least three states — Florida,
Oklahoma and Texas — already have laws that specifically ban providers
from mailing the pills to patients. Louisiana has classified one of the
drugs, mifepristone, as a controlled dangerous substance.
Bills intended to keep out the pills have cleared one chamber of the
legislature in Arizona, Indiana and South Carolina this year.
Republicans control the legislatures in all three states and the
governor’s office in two of them. But in Arizona, any restrictions that
pass could be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Survey suggests abortion pills are a growing option in states with
bans
A Guttmacher survey released Tuesday sheds light on why abortion
opponents may be focusing on pills.
The report suggests that in 2025, for the first time, more women in the
13 states that ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy obtained pills
through telehealth than traveled to other states for abortion.
The prescriptions come from providers in states with laws adopted since
the fall of Roe that are intended to protect those who prescribe
abortion pills to patients in states with bans.
The estimated increase in mailing pills comes as Guttmacher's estimates
also suggest fewer women are traveling to states like Colorado,
Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico for abortion.
Guttmacher's estimates are based on data from a monthly survey conducted
among a random sample of U.S. abortion providers, combined with
historical data from every provider in the U.S.
That follows a trend that's been documented in other surveys of abortion
providers.
Court battles are also centered on pills
Multiple states have court challenges to the federal rules that allow
the abortion pill mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth.
If they could require in-person prescriptions, it would at least dent
the ability of out-of-state providers to get pills into places with bans
in place.
Louisiana has such a lawsuit in federal court there; the attorneys
general of Florida and Texas have one in Texas; those two states, along
with Idaho, Kansas and Missouri, are making the same case in a Missouri
court.
Meanwhile, Texas has filed civil cases and Louisiana criminal ones
against providers accused of sending pills into their states.
The Food and Drug Administration last year approved a generic version of
mifepristone, which frustrated abortion opponents.
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An abortion-rights activist holds a box of mifepristone pills as
demonstrators from both anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups
rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington, March 26, 2024. (AP
Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)
 One state imposed a ban, but its
fate is uncertain
Wyoming is the only state this year that has imposed a new abortion
ban.
Under a law signed in March by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, it
became the fifth state with a ban on abortion at about six weeks’
gestational age — before many women realize they’re pregnant. Like
most of the others, Wyoming’s ban is on abortions once cardiac
activity can be detected.
Courts have rejected previous Wyoming efforts to limit abortion.
The Wyoming Supreme Court in January struck down a ban on abortion
at all stages of pregnancy.
The idea of punishing women is not gaining ground
No state has adopted a measure intended to allow criminal
prosecutions against women who have abortions.
Proposals to do so keep getting made but sputter early in the
legislative process.
The farthest such a bill has made it was a hearing last year before
a Senate subcommittee in South Carolina. One was scheduled for a
subcommittee hearing in Tennessee this month, but didn’t get one.
Pregnancy Justice, which advocates for the rights of pregnant
people, says it’s tracked new “abortion-as-homicide” measures
introduced in six states in 2026 — down from 13 states last year.
The major established anti-abortion groups oppose the approach.
“Women require compassion and support,” said Ingrid Duran, the state
legislative director for National Right to Life. “Not prosecution.”
Melissa Murray, a professor at New York University School of Law,
says that introducing bills with penalties against women can break
down the idea that such policies are off-limits.
“You keep pushing the boundary, pushing the envelope, eventually you
will get what you’re seeking,” Murray said. “It will no longer feel
fanciful or shocking.”
She also noted that women are already sometimes charged with crimes
related to their pregnancies. This month, police in Georgia charged
a woman with murder after allegedly using an abortion pill and the
opioid painkiller oxycodone.
Abortion will be on ballots in November
Abortion questions will be before voters in at least three states in
November.
Missouri lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the right to
reproductive freedom that they put into the state constitution in
2024.
Elsewhere, voters are being asked to add constitutional amendments
that largely mirror current state abortion laws.
In Nevada, a state constitutional amendment to allow abortion until
fetal viability — generally considered to be sometime after 21 weeks
of pregnancy — passed in 2024. But it needs voter approval a second
time to take effect.
A Virginia measure on the ballot would guarantee the right to
reproductive freedom, including access to contraception and making
decisions on abortion care during the first two trimesters of
pregnancy.
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Associated Press reporter Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this
article.
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