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Women seeking medical abortions in Ohio experienced a higher rate of complications after the state implemented a law that put new restrictions on doctors who performed the procedure, according to a study published Tuesday. The law, which took effect in 2011, requires abortion providers to adhere to specific guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when giving patients a combination of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. The drugs have been shown to terminate early pregnancies safely and effectively. (Netburn, 8/30)

Did a law regulating drug-induced abortions keep women safe or block them from access to this procedure? A study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine suggests an Ohio law limiting how women can obtain medical abortions may have led to a higher rate of complications. But the law’s defenders said these conclusions should be viewed with skepticism, and that researchers detected more need for follow-up care because the law resulted in more careful patient monitoring, unearthing problems they say were already there. (Luthra, 8/30)

It sounded like a simple, innocuous safety regulation: Doctors administering medication to end a pregnancy would have adhere to a protocol set by the federal Food and Drug Administration. But according to a new study, the effect of the law in one state, Ohio, was to actually increase the number of complications women getting abortions experienced. Ohio passed the medication abortion law in 2004 — it was among a half dozen similar ones nationwide and came from the playbook of anti-abortion activists. (Carmon and Reuters, 8/31)