Washington state says its stockpiled abortion pills will expire soon
Washington state's attempt to become an abortion pill vendor has allegedly failed after it spent millions to stockpile the drugs, which are soon set to expire.
Key Takeaways:
A recent op-ed from an abortion provider laments the fact that Washington state stockpiled a large number of abortion pills that are set to expire soon.
The state reportedly paid a higher rate for the drugs than abortion providers, and a statute requires the state to sell the drugs at the state's cost plus a handling fee; this has made it difficult for the state to offload the drugs to other potential buyers.
As of 2024, nine states had either begun stockpiling the abortion drug mifepristone or had plans to do so; some of those states also began to stockpile misoprostol, the second drug in the abortion pill regimen.
The stockpiling of the abortion pill has increased the drug's sales, potentially inflating the reported number of abortions.
The Backstory:
In June of 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states to set in place their own abortion laws. Some put pro-life protections in place, while others expanded abortion up to birth.
By April of 2023, Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of the name brand MIfeprex abortion pill, claimed orders for the drug had “increased substantially in recent months and are significantly higher than they were at this time last year,” according to a CNN report about stockpiling.
Live Action News noted that demand for mifepristone was up among all types of customers, including clinics, pharmacies and individual providers, according to Danco’s director of public affairs at that time.
On April 4, 2023, Governor Jay Inslee announced that Washington state had “taken unprecedented action to purchase a three-year supply of mifepristone…” and that Inslee had “directed the state Department of Corrections [DOC], using its existing pharmacy license, to purchase the medication [in March]. The full shipment was delivered on March 31."
According to the Associated Press, the state DOC was ordered "to buy 30,000 doses of the generic version of mifepristone at a cost of about $1.28 million, or $42.50 per pill.”
Governor Inslee had also vowed to continue to dispense abortion pills, regardless of any decisions by the Supreme Court. (Note: The tweet below is from the governor of Washington's X account; in 2023, it was Gov. Inslee's, but since January 2025, it has been the account of Gov. Bob Ferguson.)
Health care should be decided by a patient and their doctor, not a judge in Texas. Today, I announced that Washington state has taken unprecedented action to purchase a three-year supply of mifepristone, an abortion medication used safely for more than two decades.
An October 9 op-ed by self-described abortion provider Glenna Martin: MD, MPH, claimed that "WA’s abortion pill stockpile is in danger" and will soon be destroyed:
In 2023, under then-Gov. Jay Inslee, Washington spent $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars to purchase a stockpile of mifepristone... But nearly two years later, the state has no plan for distribution. In January, those medications are set to be destroyed.
Rather than solving the problem... 17,600 doses of mifepristone and 61,500 doses of misoprostol... are also sitting in storage with no plan to reach patients, and some doses will expire as early as March 2026.
... If the initial stock purchased is distributed before it expires in January, the state could provide safe abortions for up to 30,000 people...
... Experts have repeatedly offered to help craft a distribution plan. Other states that purchased abortion medication stockpiles after Washington have successfully distributed medications to clinics or provided funding directly to providers to purchase their own stockpiles. However, Washington impaired itself with a statute requiring the drugs be sold at the state’s cost plus a $5 handling fee — despite having paid more than the provider rate — making it harder and more expensive to move the supply at all....
Martin, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH), was described by the Seattle Times only as "a family physician in Seattle" who "sits on the board of Pro Choice Washington," but according to abortiondocs.org, Martin formerly committed abortions at Whole Woman's Health in Austin, Texas. Martin is currently employed at the University of Washington School of Medicine, which hosts a Ryan Residency abortion training program.
Ryan Residency programs have trained over 7,000 obstetricians and gynecologists in how to intentionally kill preborn human beings by induced abortion, with upwards of 100 residency training programs nationwide since its founding in 1999.
Inslee OK’d the purchase of another 17,600 doses shortly before leaving office in January, costing $757,000...
... The extra 17,600 doses expire in late 2028 and early 2029, [Brionna] Aho [spokesperson for Gov. Bob Ferguson] noted. On that purchase, the supplier agreed to accept unused doses when they expire and exchange them for new pills at no cost to the state. So destroying those pills will likely be unnecessary.
A separate stockpile of misoprostol expiring in February and March 2026 may also need to be destroyed, Aho said.
University of Washington Medicine had its own 10,000-pill stockpile of mifepristone. All of it has been distributed to clinics in the state, said spokesperson Susan Gregg.
Abortion pill stockpiling nationwide
Live Action News has previously documented abortion pill stockpiles in multiple states. While mifepristone is the only drug approved by the FDA for the termination of pregnancy, some states are also stockpiling misoprostol, the companion drug used in the abortion pill regimen.
Given the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) safety requirements for obtaining, prescribing, or dispensing the drugs, this stockpiling scheme seems questionable. Additionally, the Biden FDA had also opened the flood gates for dispensing abortion pills by enabling them to not only be shipped by mail but to also be dispensed in pharmacies.
Riddle me this @US_FDA requires prescribers + dispensers MUST be certified by abortion pill mfg Danco/GBP + have ability to provide specific care.
How are states #1) prescribers (clinicians) or dispensers (pharmacies) + able to stockpile abortion pills? wtop.com/maryland/2023/…
By April of 2024, at least nine states had either purchased mifepristone or had plans to stockpile the drug:
California
Illinois
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Mexico
New York
Oregon
Washington State
Some of the same states also stockpiled misoprostol, the second drug in the abortion pill regimen.
Is stockpiling linked to higher abortion statistics?
Is it possible that the stockpiling of abortion pills “just in case” could be the “elephant in the room” that explains, at least in part, why abortion numbers are increasing?
In March of 2024, the Guttmacher Institute, a former research arm and “special affiliate” of Planned Parenthood, estimated that the abortion pill had accounted for 63% of abortions in 2023, a 45% increase from 2017.
Abortion pill totals for 2023 published by Guttmacher (updated in February of 2025), indicated a whopping 648,500 abortion pill sales reported that year alone. However, data from Guttmacher’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study reiterated that its abortion pill counts don’t include those that “take place outside of the formal health care system” or which are “mailed to people in states with total abortion bans.”
These undercounted abortion pill numbers still translated to an abortion pill count of 54,042 monthly, 1,777 daily, 74 hourly, and one abortion by pill every 49 seconds in 2023.
Data also published by the FDA in February 2025 recorded that, between 2000 and December of 2024, “The estimated number of women who have used mifepristone in the U.S. for medical termination of pregnancy through the end of December 2024 is approximately 7.5 million women.” The data indicates that an additional 1.6 million abortion pills were distributed between 2022 and 2024, an increase of nearly 103% since 2018.
HERE IT IS!
The initial allotment of Misoprostol—250,560 pills creating an emergency stockpile—arriving in California.
Medication abortion will remain available, accessible, and affordable in California — regardless of what an extreme Texas judge thinks.
This suggests that those who obtain the drugs need to actually be pregnant — something that is clearly not the case where abortion pill stockpiles are concerned.
But they get away with it, because the FDA has granted policing power to those who profit from the drug — namely to Danco or generic manufacturers GenBioPro (GBP) and Evita Solutions, LLC. And allowing abortion pill stockpiles to continue seems to violate the REMS, as Live Action News’ “Bad Actors” series previously documented.
The FDA has NOT approved the abortion pill:
*Up to 12 week
*For advanced Use
*To Stockpile
Policing powers were given to Danco and GBP the MFGs and this needs to end.
FDA MUST enforce the REMS and decertify these abortion groups
x.com/carafem/status…@FDA@HHSGov
In 2022, Politico reported a stern warning from the FDA about the dangers of prescribing the drug to women who are not pregnant, writing, “The FDA said health providers prescribing abortion medication to people who aren’t pregnant are acting without its authorization and that the practice is potentially dangerous for patients.”
Now it seems all bets and warnings are off… and access to drugs that intentionally kill is all that matters, regardless of risk.
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Abortion Pill·By Carole Novielli
