What Happens During a Medical Abortion?

June 17, 2025

If you’re thinking about a medical abortion, you deserve the facts. Also known as the abortion pill, medical abortion consists of two drugs that terminate an existing pregnancy.

While a medical abortion may seem like an simple solution to pregnancy, there are risks to consider. To safeguard your health, talk more with your medical provider about known risks and complications to be aware of before making any pregnancy decisions.

We at Elevate Women’s Center can walk you through all your pregnancy options once you have confirmed your pregnancy details with our no-cost medical services and support.

What Happens During Medical Abortion

A medical abortion consists of a series of two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. First, mifepristone is taken, which blocks the hormone progesterone. It prevents your uterus from sustaining a pregnancy, causing the fertilized egg to detach from the uterine wall.

Second, misoprostol is taken, which causes the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy from your body.

Risks of Medical Abortion (The Abortion Pill)

There are serious physical risks to consider before going about a medical abortion. Some common side effects of medical abortion include abdominal cramping and vaginal bleeding. Potential risks of medical abortion include the following:

• The body not releasing all pregnancy tissue in the uterus, also called an incomplete abortion. This may require surgical abortion.
• An ongoing pregnancy if the procedure doesn’t work
• Heavy and prolonged bleeding
• Infection
• Fever
• Digestive symptoms such as upset stomach

It’s important to note that this type of abortion method is only FDA-approved through 10 weeks of gestation. Risks go way up after this time.

Before Any Abortion

There are a couple of steps to take to protect your health before deciding on abortion. Since a medical abortion is only FDA-approved for women through the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, you will want to confirm how far along you are with an ultrasound.

An ultrasound also confirms the location of your pregnancy, as an ectopic pregnancy is a real pregnancy risk to some women. Lastly, an ultrasound can alert you to a possible miscarriage or other complications.

Schedule a No-Cost Appointment

We offer no-cost pregnancy services, including lab-quality pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, so that you can get answers. Schedule a free and confidential appointment at our center today.

All abortion information sourced in this blog is based on accurate information at the time of writing.