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Not 24 hours after the US
Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, ending the right to an
abortion in the United States, Myisha Malone-King got a call from her
insurance company. It said that the medication she takes for a condition
totally unrelated to abortion would no longer be available to her.
Malone-King has Crohn's disease,
a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that can come with life-threatening
complications. She was taking methotrexate, an
inexpensive drug that has been used to help with chronic inflammation and
pain since the 1980s.
Millions of people take the
drug for chronic conditions. Doctors prescribe it to help with things
like cancer, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. But it can also
be used off-label in very high doses to treat a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy.
Methotrexate is not used in
what's known as a medication abortion,
which involves mifepristone and
misoprostol.
But in some states with
restrictive abortion policies like Texas, the law classifies methotrexate
as a drug that can induce abortion and groups it with the other two,
meaning there can be restrictions on its use. However, Texas law also
says that methotrexate can be prescribed for other purposes. And in that
case, it is exempt from restrictions.
Recent changes in abortion
laws have sown confusion that has spooked insurance providers, pharmacies
and medical offices into restricting the use of methotrexate, even in
states where abortion is legal. It's not clear how many people may be
affected, but about 500,000 methotrexate prescriptions were written each
month for the past year, said IQVIA, a pharmaceutical market research
firm.
"My feeling is, nobody
should be making this decision over my body that my doctor and I have
determined was right for me," Malone-King said.
Malone-King's doctor was
able to switch her to another medication. But not everyone is able to do
so.
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