On June th, 2026 Leiden University Medical Center has discontinued the WOMEN&More study into the drug mifepriston. An interim evaluation showed that mifepriston 50 mg is not suitable as a contraceptive. The study started on April 14, 2025. In this study, researchers aimed to demonstrate that mifepristone 50 mg is an effective and safe contraceptive option.

The evaluation revealed a higher number of positive pregnancy tests and pregnancies than expected. The percentage of ectopic pregnancies, in particular, gave cause for concern.

This is very disappointing, as mifepristone appeared suitable for women with contraindications to existing hormonal contraception or who experienced side effects from contraception containing estrogens and/or progestogens.

This outcome was unexpected, as earlier research on mifepristone as a contraceptive — conducted over six months in a smaller cohort — had shown considerable promise. A larger, longer-term study was essential to uncover these findings. Your generous donations have made this important research possible.

14 Dutch hospitals and more than 560 women participated in the study. All participants have since been informed via their own research teams and thanked for their contribution to scientific research.

The results of the study will be published in scientific journals in due course.

Mifepriston 200 mg in combination with misoprostol is prescribed for medical abortion and in the treatment of miscarriages. The current research results concern a different mechanism of action. The use of mifepriston 200 mg for medical abortion or medical treatment of a miscarriage is extremely safe and effective.

Thank you so much for your support and we will look into other possible ways forward.

Women on Waves crowdfunder

So it happened. Roe is overturned and conservative supreme court judges will be there for another 30 years. So we need a new strategy to advance our reproductive freedom.

Here is our plan.

The abortion pill, Mifepristone, can also be used as a weekly on-demand contraceptive. We are now starting a large clinical trial to confirm its efficacy and safety. After the trial, Mifepristone can be registered and distributed as a contraceptive. You could then use Mifepristone once a week to avoid getting pregnant. It also works as a morning-after pill or to end an early pregnancy. In this way, it challenges the very difference between contraception and abortion.

Current oral contraceptive options are far from ideal. You have to use them every day and many women experience side effects, including risk of thrombosis, depression and breast cancer. Almost half the women on the pill stop within three years because they are dissatisfied with the method.

Mifepristone, is an anti-progesterone is an extremely effective morning-after pill and holds great promise as a weekly on-demand contraceptive. And it does not have the side effects of existing contraception (OC). Widely available and proven safe, Mifepristone can fundamentally change the way women all over the world will be able to control their fertility.

It would allow us to move flexibly between the medicine’s different indications as weekly contraceptive, as an on-demand method used before or after sexual intercourse or as an early medical abortion method, depending on our life circumstances.

Smaller clinical trials have confirmed that Mifepristone is safe and works as a contraceptive. But we need more extensive studies to get the drug approved and clinically implemented. So that is why Women on Waves together with Leiden Medical University and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden is setting up the required clinical trial at the moment, which could change the reproductive landscape for women across the world.

An international experienced medical, scientific and ethics team has been convened by Women on Waves to conduct these larger clinical trials in keeping with the requirements of the FDA and European Medicine Agency (EMA, which has advised on this project. After completing the study with success, other organisations have already committed to making Mifepristone available around the world. Seven hospitals have joined the trial and we have all clinical and ethical approvals in place to get started.

To complete the study of 949 women using weekly mifepristone for a year, to provide the data we need in order to register it as a weekly contraceptive with the EMA, we need 2.2 million euro. We have already raised 500.000 euro and we can already start the study when we can raise another 500.000 euro.

You can join this new, game-changing contraceptive strategy. Perhaps it will not be the pharmaceutical companies, but women — and those who love them — who will make the change.

Even if states ban the abortion pill, this new on demand contraceptive method can always be accessible through local or international (telemedical) services.

If you would like to get the full study protocol and study approvals, please send a message by clicking on the contact button

If you need abortion pills now please go to www.aidaccess.org

For more information about the work of Women on Waves, you can watch this documentary

For more information about Dr Rebecca Gomperts

Women on Waves