WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States for the first time, the agency said on Tuesday, even as more states seek to ban medication abortion.The regulatory change will potentially expand abortion access as President Joe Biden's administration wrestles with how best to protect abortion rights after they were sharply curtailed by the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and the state bans that followed.The FDA had first said it would be making those changes in December 2021 when it announced it would relax some risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, or REMS, on the pill, that had been in place since the agency approved it in 2000 and were lifted temporarily in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Mifeprex is the brand name version of mifepristone which, in combination with a second drug called misoprostol that has various uses including miscarriage management, induces an abortion up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy in a process known as medication abortion.NO EQUAL ACCESSThe regulatory change will, however, not provide equal access to all people, GenBioPro, which makes the generic version of mifepristone, said in a statement."