Mifepristone is more than just an abortion pill. From fibroids to miscarriage care, its medical promise has been sacrificed to antiabortion politics.
This is Part 1 of 3 in a new series, “The Moral Property of Women: How Antiabortion Politics Are Withholding Medical Care,” a serialized version of the Winter 2026 print feature article. Part 2, out Thursday, examines how mifepristone could transform treatment for endometriosis, cancer and other chronic illnesses that disproportionately affect women. Part 3, out Friday, explores the drug’s promise as a safer, non-hormonal form of contraception—and the political forces working to keep it out of reach.
On Sept. 28, 2025, activists nationwide commemorated the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone for early termination of pregnancy.
Beyond abortion care, the FDA has also approved mifepristone for treatment of Cushing’s disease (a hormonal disorder) and has granted “compassionate use” to treat meningioma (a benign brain tumor) and other serious or immediately life-threatening conditions. Doctors widely prescribe mifepristone off-label to manage miscarriage, treat ectopic pregnancies, support cervical dilation during childbirth and induce labor.
But the drug has many other uses, especially for women.
Mifepristone functions as a synthetic hormone that adheres to progesterone receptors in the body, blocking the hormone’s action and preventing the negative effects it can sometimes have, such as when it stimulates the growth of uterine fibroids or certain cancer cells.
Mifepristone also blocks glucocorticoid receptors, meaning hormones such as cortisol cannot attach and suppress the immune system, increase blood glucose levels or cause stress leading to depression.
As a result, mifepristone has shown potential in treating a striking range of ailments, including fibroids, ovarian and breast cancer, depression, endometriosis, Gulf War Illness and potentially even symptoms of other autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Research also suggests that mifepristone may help prevent some forms of breast cancer and can serve as an effective weekly contraceptive without the side effects of hormonal birth control.
Despite mifepristone’s broad medical promise, its development has been repeatedly stymied by abortion opponents who fear wider availability would weaken their attempts to suppress abortion access.
Antiabortion politics have blocked or delayed the development of mifepristone for these other uses, leaving women in needless pain and subject to invasive and unnecessary surgical procedures such as hysterectomies.
Fibroids
Under normal circumstances, if you’ve got these kinds of results from a trial like this, you would do a phase 3 trial, and it would be funded by a pharmaceutical company.
Dr. Kevin Fiscella, University of Rochester
According to research cited by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, more than 26 million women in the U.S. are affected by fibroids, which are noncancerous growths of the uterus that can reach the size of a grapefruit or larger. Fibroids can cause heavier, longer or more frequent periods; severe pain in the pelvis, stomach or lower back; and difficulty conceiving. By the age of 50, up to 70 percent of white women and 80 percent of Black women will have developed fibroids. Treatment too often defaults to invasive surgery, either removing the fibroids or performing hysterectomies.
Some early U.S. research demonstrated mifepristone’s effectiveness in treating fibroids. From 2003 to 2009, Drs. Steven Eisinger and Kevin Fiscella at the University of Rochester published four peer-reviewed studies showing mifepristone’s efficacy.
As Eisinger recalls, “Right away, it was obvious: It was a great success. The fibroids shrunk. The bleeding stopped. Patients’ quality of life improved dramatically. They felt better, had more energy, more color in their cheeks. They would go about life with a lot more enthusiasm. The scores on quality of life were so dramatically different that we actually considered the possibility that mifepristone was a mood enhancer.”
Before treatment, many patients were anemic due to heavy bleeding from fibroids. “Their blood counts went up dramatically,” says Eisinger, who notes that as little as 2 milligrams of mifepristone daily effectively reduced fibroids—with minimal to no side effects. In contrast, the medications currently used to treat fibroids often do have negative side effects, including loss of bone density.
The scores on quality of life were so dramatically different that we actually considered the possibility that mifepristone was a mood enhancer.
Dr. Steven Eisinger, University of Rochester
Despite these promising results, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the George W. Bush administration in the early 2000s declined to renew the research team’s grant. Eisinger sought assistance from Danco Laboratories, at that time the only maker of mifepristone in the U.S. According to Eisinger, Danco was interested and supportive of the research, but as a small private company, it could not provide enough funding for a phase 3 trial.
“Under normal circumstances, if you’ve got these kinds of results from a trial like this, you would do a phase 3 trial, and it would be funded by a pharmaceutical company,” Fiscella told Ms.
But antiabortion politics along with threats of violence and boycotts likely discouraged other pharmaceutical companies from cosponsoring the trials.
“I suspect the stigma of mifepristone probably made it a challenge to partner with other pharmaceuticals,” Fiscella says. “This wouldn’t have been a lot of money for some of these giant pharmaceuticals. There was nothing else on the market. It was an important niche. If it wasn’t mifepristone, I think it would have been a slam dunk.”
Mifepristone presents advantages such as noninvasiveness, fewer side effects and lower cost.
Dr. Yefang Huang, Chengdu University
Without funding, the U.S. researchers had to drop their study.
But other countries carried it forward. Recent studies from China, Italy, India and Nigeria report that small doses (5 to 50 milligrams) of mifepristone are effective for treating fibroids (by comparison, a 200-milligram dose is used for abortion). Across these studies, mifepristone reduced menstrual bleeding, relieved pain and improved quality of life.
Researchers in China recently synthesized all available studies on the use of mifepristone to treat fibroids. In a meta-analysis of 18 randomized controlled trials involving 2,066 patients, researchers found statistically significant support for the use of mifepristone to treat fibroids. Dr. Yefang Huang of Chengdu University in China told Ms. that mifepristone “effectively reduces fibroid volume, alleviates symptoms such as excessive menstrual bleeding and pelvic pain, and is generally well tolerated.”
With small daily doses of mifepristone, patients experienced significant pain relief, allowing them to resume daily activities more comfortably. Many patients were able to avoid surgical intervention, including hysterectomies—an invasive and painful surgery that carries risks of complications, requires a significant recovery period and can lead to early menopause.
Huang notes that current surgical and medical treatments for fibroids are associated with hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness, and are typically more costly. “Mifepristone presents advantages such as noninvasiveness, fewer side effects and lower cost. Patients generally demonstrate better overall tolerability and quality of life during mifepristone treatment.”
China’s National Medical Products Administration approved mifepristone for the treatment of uterine fibroids in 2014. In China today, a three-month regimen of 10 milligrams per day is the approved protocol for treating fibroids.
Meanwhile, American women still do not have access to this very effective nonsurgical treatment.
What happened with fibroids was not an anomaly—it was a blueprint. And it has been repeated across conditions that cause chronic pain, disability and infertility for millions of women. Part 2 of “The Moral Property of Women” series, out Thursday, examines how the same political forces have blocked mifepristone’s development for endometriosis, cancer and other serious illnesses—revealing the full human cost of suppressing medical science.
Great Job Carrie N. Baker & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
