States are stockpiling abortion pills before Supreme Court decision

States from California to New York have been stockpiling abortion pills as the Supreme Court prepares to weigh in on its first abortion case since overturning Roe v. Wade.

The court on Tuesday will hear oral arguments on whether to limit the use of mifepristone, one of two drugs most commonly used for abortions in the U.S. At stake is access to the pill through the mail, as well as whether to curb its use from the current limit of 10 weeks pregnancy to seven weeks.

At least eight states have been building reserves of either mifepristone or misoprostol, another drug that is typically prescribed in combination with but can also be used alone to end pregnancies. Governors rushed to buy abortion pills last year after a Texas district court judge issued an order suspending approval of mifepristone, which was first cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000.

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In California, Governor Gavin Newsom said last year that his state will build supplies of up to 2 million misoprostol pills. The state has been distributing about 250,000 of the pills to providers "as needed" and at no cost, Newsom spokesperson Brandon Richards said in an email.

New York and Maryland, two places where voters will decide whether to amend their state constitutions to protect reproductive rights this fall, have announced plans to buy 150,000 doses of misoprostol and 29,900 mifepristone pills, respectively. Oregon has 22,500 doses of mifepristone in reserves. New Mexico, where 69% of abortions are provided to patients traveling from out of state due to restrictions, has 4,383 units of misoprostol set aside — enough to cover a statewide need for nearly six months.

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A judgment making mifepristone less available will further limit access to legal abortion at a time when it's already been significantly reduced in the U.S. According to the Associated Press, more than 25 million women aged 15 to 44, or 2 out of every 5 women, now live in states where abortion restrictions have increased after the conservative Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending a nationwide right to abortions.

"We're happy to see that states are working with abortion providers, but stockpiling is just a band-aid solution," said Brittany Fonteno, president and chief executive officer of the National Abortion Federation, the country's largest professional association of abortion providers. "It doesn't really provide that long-term benefit and access to medication abortion."

Medication abortion has become increasingly common in the U.S. In 2023, 63% of abortions were carried out using pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports reproductive rights. For those looking to terminate pregnancies in states where abortion is restricted, patients had been able to access the drug through telemedicine consultations with providers in states without bans.