More than half of US abortions in 2020 were conducted using medication, according to new data assembled by a reproductive rights think tank that marked a notable inflection point in the method’s growing popularity amid new efforts to limit access to the pills.

Use of medication abortion, in which patients use a two-pill regime to end their pregnancies, has been increasing steadily since the method was approved in 2000. However, the Covid-19 pandemic – and how it made patients more comfortable with telehealth while a facilitating a loosening of federal regulations around the pills’ use – may have increased the method’s prevalence.

As medication abortion has