This story is part of our continuing coverage on Abortion in America: The Tipping Point. On the cusp of a possibly historic decision on abortion access by the Supreme Court, we'll be investigating how the latest abortion legislation is impacting women and doctors; answering your most commonly asked questions; and looking at what’s next for activists on both sides of this ongoing debate.
Is the abortion pill the same as Plan B?
Short answer? No. Here's the breakdown:
Plan B, a.k.a. the morning-after pill, is a brand name for emergency contraception, which is essentially a mega-dose of hormonal birth control pills. When taken within 72 hours, it's 89 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. It works by stop a woman from ovulating. In other words, it doesn’t terminate a pregnancy, but stops a pregnancy from happening to begin with. No ovulation, no egg that can be fertilized by a sperm.
The abortion pill, or mifepristone or RU-486, is a whole other enchilada—it’s a very safe method of terminating a pregnancy up until 10 weeks after the first day of a woman's last period, and has been used by over 1.5 million women in the U.S. since it gained FDA approval in 2000. (For a medication abortion, mifepristone is usually part of a two-regimen; mifepristone is administered first, in a doctor's office, followed by the drug misoprostol, taken at home.)
“Plan B is a safe and effective form of birth control. It is not the abortion pill," says Raegan McDonald-Mosley, M.D., chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Plan B prevents pregnancy by postponing ovulation, which means sperm does not come into contact with or fertilize an egg. In fact, every major medical institution, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), states unequivocally that Plan B and other types of emergency contraception are forms of birth control, and they cannot induce an abortion if a person is already pregnant. The abortion pill—mifepristone—in contrast, ends a pregnancy by blocking the hormone progesterone, which is needed for a pregnancy to continue.”
Summary: Plan B stops pregnancy from happening. Medication abortion is a means of terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester. Not the same at all.
