This month marked a major win for reproductive healthcare in Australia. The Therapeutic Goods Administration finally made it easier to access abortion pills by following expert advice and allowing doctors and pharmacists without specialist certification to prescribe MS-2 Step, also known as RU486.
It has been a long, slow road to get here.
Mifepristone (MS-2 Step), which is most commonly used in conjunction with misoprostol for early medical abortion, was put on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2013 for less than $40 but has been prohibitively expensive and difficult to access for too many patients for the past decade.
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