Recent court battles over an abortion drug could result in higher health care costs for employers and higher rates of absences related to pregnancy and childbirth.

On Aug. 16, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that mifepristone should maintain its approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the federal government should reverse its regulatory changes made in recent years, including:

• Allowing nonphysicians to prescribe the drug.
• Permitting women to take the drug up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, instead of seven weeks.
• Allowing health care providers or pharmacies to mail the drug to patients.
• Permitting health care providers to prescribe the drug via telehealth visits.
  

Restricting access to the abortion drug could potentially affect employer health care costs in several ways.

Typically, mifepristone is used in combination with misoprostol for abortion. If the 5th Circuit's ruling stands, mifepristone would become harder for consumers to get, and some patients would likely take misoprostol alone, which is less effective and has more side effects, said Laurie Sobel, associate director of women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in San Francisco.

In addition, some patients who couldn't get access to mifepristone might travel to a clinic to get a surgical abortion, which is more expensive than medication abortion and would require more time off work, she added.

"We know that outcomes from surgical abortion procedures are not as good...

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