Despite lawmakers’ best efforts, California is not impervious to all abortion challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, which would severely limit access to the pill by prohibiting mail-order prescriptions and requiring in-person doctors’ visits for people considering abortion.

“The reality is we’re not immune,” Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California President Jodi Hicks said ahead of the Supreme Court’s actions.

Mifepristone is the first of a two-drug regimen used for medication abortions. It blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone and is also used to manage miscarriages. Most abortions in the U.S. and California are medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy center.  Although California does not collect abortion data, Guttmacher conducts a survey of all abortion providers in the U.S. every three years. 

If mifepristone were ever to be pulled from the market, medication abortion would still be legal in California, but doctors and patients would have to rely solely on the second pill in the regimen, misoprostol. Misoprostol causes contractions to empty the uterus and is safe to use alone, but it takes longer and there can be more complications, like prolonged bleeding.

Last year, Newsom announced the state purchased 250,000 misoprostol pills and could increase the order to 2 million. By March, the supply was depleted. Reordering was an option, but it wasn’t clear if that would be necessary, given that the court seemed skeptical of the plaintiff’s case for more restrictions.