The abortion pill is now used in 65% of all terminated pregnancies nationwide, according to the reproductive health research firm Guttmacher Institute. The method’s popularity has only grown since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, with one in four patients turning to telehealth providers to access abortion medication, according to the Society of Family Planning. 

Since then, anti-abortion advocates and politicians have set their sights on legally limiting or eliminating access to the abortion pill, which is actually mifepristone paired with misoprostol in a regimen currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to terminate pregnancies at 10 weeks or less and to manage miscarriages. 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a review of the safety of mifepristone in 2025, citing a highly criticized, non-peer reviewed report from a conservative think tank that questions the safety and efficacy of mifepristone—a medication that was approved by the FDA in 2000, has been reviewed repeatedly and has been shown to be safe and effective by numerous scientific studies.

At the state level, Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has sued the FDA over a 2023 rule implemented under former president Joe Biden that allowed the abortion pill to be prescribed via telemedicine appointment and dispensed via mail or pick-up at certified retail pharmacies. (The rule was implemented after a 2023 FDA review of the medication that again found it to be safe and effective.)

A federal judge on April 7 granted the FDA’s request to put a hold on the case until the agency could complete its review of mifepristone, and gave the agency until October 7—one month before midterm elections—to provide an update on the status of that review.

With the FDA signaling a harder line on the medication, the fate of access nationwide hangs in the balance. If the 2023 rule is reversed, more patients will have to travel to a doctor’s office to obtain the abortion pill—a journey that many patients cannot afford. 

“We know that people in surrounding states with more stringent abortion laws—Utah, Arizona and Idaho—utilize telehealth under the provision of shield laws,” says Macy Haverda, executive director of Wild West Access Fund.

In 2025, the Nevada-based nonprofit assisted more than 1,800 patients with accessing abortion care in the state. Haverda adds that Nevada women, particularly rural women, stand to lose if telehealth were no longer a legal option for them to obtain an abortion.

“Outside of the Las Vegas and Reno metropolitan areas, access to abortion in Nevada is almost entirely based on the ability to receive telehealth or for people to travel a great distance,” she says. 

Nevada law allows abortion at up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, and the state has seen an influx in the number of abortions performed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Democratic state Legislature passed a shield law, signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo in 2023, that protects health care providers and abortion patients from prosecution in Nevada—including those providing and receiving care via telehealth.

Despite that, the Louisiana lawsuit and the FDA’s review of mifepristone could take away telehealth as a method to obtain an abortion, even in states where abortion is legal. 

Las Vegas-based pharmaceutical company GenBioPro is one of two U.S. manufacturers of generic mifepristone. The company’s legal counsel, Democracy Forward, has challenged multiple states’ abortion bans and intervened in cases like the one in Louisiana that would impact access to the medication.

In a news release, the company emphasized that the lawyers representing Louisiana in its lawsuit against the FDA are from the Alliance Defending Freedom. The conservative legal group went before the Supreme Court in 2024 in an unsuccessful bid to limit access to mifepristone. It also had a hand in the Dobbs decision that resulted in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

“Far-right, ideologically-charged attacks on mifepristone have led to the Trump-Vance administration calling into question its own FDA’s decision making as it pursues its review of mifepristone’s safety,” Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement. “Although this case should not have been allowed to proceed in the first place, Democracy Forward will hold the FDA accountable to ensure its review is grounded in the extensive, decades-long scientific evidence demonstrating mifepristone’s safety and efficacy.” 

One 2026 study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health drew from more than 5,000 pages of FDA documents to conclude that the agency’s regulation of mifepristone from 2011 to 2023 was consistently “shaped by scientific evidence and a cautious regulatory approach,” noting that the period saw a “limited impact of political interference—to date—on the agency’s oversight.”

Telehealth abortions in Nevada nearly doubled from 2022 to 2025, according to a 2026 report from UNLV’s Brookings Mountain West and Lincy Institute. In that same period, Nevada’s in-person abortions count fell by more than 18%. 

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah also recorded sharp increases in the number of residents who received abortions via telehealth in that span. Haverda says many did so through Nevada providers. She worries that a reversal of the 2023 FDA rule could have immediate consequences for Nevadans and residents of neighboring states who depend on its shield laws. 

“This would have a ripple effect across the Valley, as many, many more people would be required to schedule in-person appointments. It’s also all but guaranteed to cause a wave of doubt and confusion about the legality of abortion in the state,” she says.

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