In 1973, the Roe v. Wade decision stated that an individual female has the right to choose whether or not to terminate their pregnancy, not the government. In 2021, the court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization made headlines when an act passed in Mississippi prohibited abortions after 15 weeks. According to Oyez, the only licensed abortion facility in Mississippi, The Jackson Women’s Center, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of banning abortion. The Supreme Court came to this conclusion: “The Constitution does not mention abortion. The right is neither deeply rooted in the nation’s history nor an essential component of ordered liberty.” As a result, Abortion Finder says, “states are no longer limited in what kinds of abortion restrictions they can pass.” The laws vary in different states; some like Alabama, Texas, and Tennessee have banned it completely, while others have time bans that prevent females from having an abortion after a certain amount of weeks. In North Carolina specifically, a 20-week gestational ban has been put in place, despite opposition from the current governor, Roy Cooper.

Last year, an anti-abortion group called Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration, which targets “the agency's two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion process,” according to CNN. Keep in mind, mifepristone and Plan B have two different purposes; Plan B prevents pregnancy, while mifepristone terminates it. CBS claims the group acts on the “behalf of physicians and medical associations, which argue the FDA erred in approving mifepristone more than 20 years ago.” The Federal Drug Association says mifepristone, when paired with another medicine called misoprostol, “is used to end a pregnancy through ten weeks gestation.” According to CNN, the group wants the FDA “to withdraw mifepristone and misoprostol as FDA-approved chemical abortion drugs and to withdraw defendants' actions to deregulate these chemical abortion drugs." If the group manages to win the court case, women everywhere will no longer have the option to decide if they would like to terminate their pregnancy. CNN notes that the NARAL Pro-Choice America, who opposes the lawsuit, made a statement after conducting research, claiming that if the FDA approves revoking the medicine, “64.5 million women of reproductive age in the US would lose access to medication abortion care.”

Last year, controversy struck as the Biden administration said they would not heavily enforce the long-standing requirements stating that women must pick up medicines like mifepristone in person. Now Walgreens, one of the most popular pharmacies in the nation, has announced they will not be selling mifepristone in 20 states. The decision came after 20 Republican attorneys authored a letter to the company,  “threatening Walgreens and other pharmacies with legal action if they dispensed mifepristone,” according to NPR. A Walgreens spokesperson remarked on the subject, saying that they still “intend to be a certified pharmacy and will distribute mifepristone only in those jurisdictions where it is legal.”  On their official website, Walgreens said, “Providing legally approved medications to patients is what pharmacies do, and is rooted in our commitment to the communities in which we operate.”