Future of pill-induced abortion: Women can already receive pills by mail in 4 states, what's next?

A teenager whose mother had trouble getting her to an abortion clinic during normal business hours.

A busy professional who couldn't leave work until 4 p.m.

A mother with young children, no child care and no car.

All of these Maine women recently had abortions in the privacy of their own homes, without having to step foot in an abortion clinic. Using pills that arrived by mail as part of a study by the research and technical assistance organization Gynuity, the women legally induced their own miscarriages before 10 weeks of pregnancy. And in doing so, they became soldiers on the front lines of the biggest abortion battle you've never heard of.

Hailed in the 1990s as "the pill that changes everything," the abortion pill mifepristone (also known as RU-486 and Mifeprex) got off to a slow start after Food and Drug Administration approval in 2000.

But now, the pill is at a crossroads, with 31 percent of American abortion patients choosing pill-induced abortion over surgery,