“I think they’ve been aware of it but maybe didn’t understand the degree to which it’s a transformative technology especially when combined with the internet and with our global commerce system,” said Elisa Wells, the cofounder of Plan C, a website that provides people with information about self-managed abortion with pills. “They’re clearly concerned because they see the promise of the [abortion pill] to make abortion accessible to those who need it.”
Focusing more heavily on the FDA’s regulation of medication abortion means anti-abortion activists may have to subtly change their strategy. The movement has long relied on abortion later in pregnancy to associate graphic and misleading imagery with abortion in general, and put clinics in the crosshairs of anti-choice legislation, protest, and violence.