Abstract
AbstractMedication abortion with pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) challenges the spatiality of abortion provision because it creates the possibility for safe, self‐managed abortion outside of clinical infrastructure. This possibility has been contested by pro‐ and anti‐abortion actors for as long as medication abortion has been in existence. In this paper, I offer a legal geography account of medication abortion technology that examines how medication abortion has been regulated in the United States. Conceptually, the paper uses a legal geography methodology to probe the social spatialities that abortion laws construct. Empirically, the paper analyses trends in legislation to restrict medication abortion and two significant court challenges where abortion providers brought suit against medication abortion restrictions. Drawing on legislation and litigation over mifepristone, I demonstrate that restrictions on it function by anchoring mifepristone inside the clinical spaces and regulatory frameworks established for surgical abortion. In this way, mifepristone regulations circumscribe its availability in order to prevent the creation of alternative models for abortion provision that could re‐arrange its geography and expand abortion access.
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