When questions arise about tighter government controls on mifepristone, abortion-pill advocates routinely point to studies reporting that medication abortion is highly effective and that serious complications are “extremely rare.” But a closer look at one widely cited study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) raises serious questions about how those conclusions are reached and how valid they are.
The study, “Effectiveness and safety of telehealth medication abortion in the USA,” by Ushma Upadhyay and UCSF colleagues, appeared in Nature Medicine in 2024. It was cited as recently as July 3, 2026, by journalist Julie Ivanova of telehealth.org as proof that “studies have generally supported the safety of medication abortion provided through telehealth and at-home use.”
Upadhyay’s latest study examined 6,034 telehealth abortions managed by three virtual clinics serving women in 20 states and the District of Columbia between April 2021 and January 2022. The researchers reported that 97.7% of abortions were complete without known intervention or continuing pregnancy, while 99.8% were not followed by a “serious adverse event.”