| Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the fight over abortion has shifted to the states and largely centers on the abortion pill mifepristone. Patients have been able to access mifepristone through telemedicine services as physicians seek protection from prosecution through so-called telemedicine shield laws. These laws aim to protect physicians who prescribe medication to states with tight abortion restrictions. The 2025 legislative session is one place to get a sense of the tactics that Republican state representatives are using to stop abortions. As of May 15, 29 bills banning access to the pill and 35 bills limiting access have been introduced, according to a tracker that monitors all 50 states compiled by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and advocacy group. It’s the largest number of bills introduced since Roe was overturned, according to the organization. States including Idaho and Oklahoma proposed bills classifying mifepristone — and the second dose of misoprostol, a drug used for stomach ulcers — as a controlled substance. Louisiana last year became the first state to make possessing abortion pills a crime. In Texas, one proposal would allow anyone to sue a provider, manufacturer, distributor or prescriber of the drug for $100,000 under a wrongful death statute. Another would test wastewater for mifepristone and specific hormones. “State legislators have the right to protect their citizens, born and preborn, from the many deadly harms of chemical abortion pills,” said Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy at the anti-abortion group Students for Life. Many of the bills have died in committee, like one in Mississippi that prohibited mailing drugs that cause an abortion into the state. “The anti-abortion movement is throwing everything at the wall to restrict it, with a wave of bills in state legislatures targeting everything from telehealth to promoting junk science about wastewater contamination,” said Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy advisor at the Guttmacher Institute. On the flip side, Democratic representatives are in a race to pass legislation protecting and expanding access, according to Christina Chang, the executive director of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, a coalition of 23 governors. A New York doctor was indicted on criminal charges by a Louisiana grand jury and sued by the Texas attorney general for sending abortion medication to patients in those states. In response to the lawsuit, New York Governor Kathy Hochul added prescription safeguards for doctors, so a physician’s name would not appear on the bottle. Maine recently passed a similar bill. Eight states – California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington – have passed shield laws to protect physicians from criminal or civil prosecution if they prescribe abortion medication via telehealth, according to KFF Health. - Jessica Nix | 
