FILE - Mifepristone tablets are seen in a Planned Parenthood clinic, July 18, 2024, in Ames, Iowa.
Charlie Neibergall / AP
As the state of Washington plans to destroy $1.3 million worth of expiring abortion pills it bought in 2023, Oregon leaders late last year thought ahead and replaced its expiring pills with ones that don’t expire until 2028.
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and lawsuits challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, Democratic states including Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts ordered stockpiles of the drug in 2023. New York and California also stockpiled misoprostol, the second drug in the two-step regimen for abortion and miscarriage care.
That year, Gov. Tina Kotek alongside the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Health and Science University directed the purchase of 22,500 doses of mifepristone at a cost of $40 per dose — or a total of $900,000, States Newsroom previously reported.
Oregon’s mifepristone stockpile was set to expire this month, but following the 2024 presidential election, the state exchanged its remaining supply with the drug manufacturer Danco at no cost for drugs with a September 2028 expiration date.
Approximately 14,000 doses of mifepristone remain in the state’s supply, Oregon Health Authority spokesperson Tim Heider told the Capital Chronicle.
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