The US Food and Drug Administration has agreed to allow more access to Danco Laboratories' abortion pill Mifeprex, likely making it easier and cheaper for women to have an abortion by medication.
The FDA increased authorised use of the pill to 70 days of gestation from the current 49 days, cut the recommended dose of the drug and reduced the number of required visits to a doctor.
The changes are expected to allow greater access to medication abortions, particularly in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio, which have laws that require providers to prescribe the drug according to a more restrictive FDA label in place since 2000.
On Wednesday, the agency updated the Mifeprex requirements to bring them in line with the most up-to-date scientific studies, which have shown that a third of the dose works as well.
"The FDA label has finally caught up to the evidence based practice in the United States," said Vicki Saporta, president and chief executive of the National Abortion Federation, an organisation of abortion providers.
"It has the potential of opening medical abortion care in more rural areas because it does not have to be given by a surgical abortion provider," she added.
The FDA decision comes amid a heated 2016 presidential race.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court took up a major abortion case which represents a test for a strategic shift that abortion opponents have taken in recent years: to apply restrictive regulations to abortion doctors and facilities rather than try to ban the procedure outright.
Mifeprex was approved in 2000 to terminate early pregnancy when given in combination with misoprostol, an anti-inflammatory drug that was originally approved to prevent gastric ulcers.
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