Under new state Department of Health regulations, announced yesterday, RI will become the fifth state to allow mid-level professionals as well as doctors to prescribe drugs to induce an abortion. The changes which are the first changes to Rhode Island’s abortion regulations in more than 15 years also allow nurse practitioners, physician assistants and midwives to perform abortion procedures.
The new rules ensure that mifepristone can be used as soon as it obtains final federal approval, which is expected early next year.
Mifepristone has been proven to be a safe, effective, non-surgical form of early abortion which is now available and widely used in France, Great Britain and Sweden. The Feminist Majority Foundation has conducted the largest public education campaign on mifepristone in the United States.