Behind the Safety Narrative: Legal Challenges to Mifepristone and the Political Project of Medication Abortion Regulation Restricted; Files Only
Noll, Emily (Spring 2026)
Abstract
This thesis examines the recent legal challenges to mifepristone, the medication most commonly used for abortion in the United States, and argues that they cannot be adequately understood as neutral disputes over drug safety or scientific regulation. Although anti-abortion litigants frame their attacks on mifepristone in the language of administrative law and women’s protection, I show that these claims fail under empirical and conceptual scrutiny. Mifepristone is overwhelmingly safe and effective, and the argument that restricting abortion serves women’s best interests is not supported by credible scientific or psychological evidence. The central contribution of this thesis is twofold. First, I argue that paternalism is itself an insufficient framework for analyzing the legal and regulatory attacks on mifepristone. While the rhetoric of “protecting women” is central to these challenges, paternalism does not fully capture what is at stake. Second, I show that once this framework is rejected, a broader account comes into view, one that is at once legal, empirical, juridical, historical, political, and theoretical. Through that wider lens, the anti-mifepristone campaign emerges not as a good-faith effort to safeguard women, but as part of a broader project of reproductive governance. Finally, I turn to the lived realities of restricting mifepristone for the millions of women it will affect, illustrating the human consequences of the broader legal and political project identified throughout.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 - Mifepristone: Background, Approval, Politics, and the Legal Challenges to Impede Access 5
Chapter 2 - The Myth of the “Risky” and Improperly Regulated Drug 15
Chapter 3 - Beyond Paternalism: Why “Women’s Protection” Fails as Justification and as Framework 22
Chapter 4 - Autonomy, Power, and the Sovereign Interests Behind Mifepristone Regulation 32
Chapter 5 - Reframing the Debate: The Lived Realities of Mifepristone Restrictions 57
Conclusion 64
Bibliography 67
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File download under embargo until 28 May 2027 | 2026-04-26 21:35:41 -0400 | File download under embargo until 28 May 2027 |
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