Abortion pills available online come to U.S.
Voters in Alabama and West Virginia on Tuesday approved “trigger” measures that could lead to state abortion bans if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
Even while Roe’s constitutional right to abortion remains in place, abortion has become so hard to get in many parts of the country that an online service called Aid Access launched in the summer to provide prescription abortion pills by mail to women in the U.S.
Founder Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician and activist, runs Women on Web, which ships abortion pills to women in countries where abortion is illegal.
Meanwhile, the Self Induced
Abortion Legal Team last month announced a help line and website to provide information and attorney referrals for women who have ended their pregnancies and fear they will be arrested or prosecuted.
“We know of at least 21 people who have been arrested, and some prosecuted, either for ending their own pregnancy or helping others” since 1973, said Jill E. Adams, a Berkeley, Calif., lawyer who founded the SIA team.
Tuesday’s elections illustrated the ever-deepening divide over abortion. Oregonians overwhelmingly voted to preserve public funding for abortion, while Alabama passed a state constitutional amendment that recognizes “the sanctity of unborn life and
the rights of unborn children.” West Virginia amended its constitution to declare no right to abortion.
If Roe’s legal framework is abolished, 20 other states already have laws that could be used to further restrict or ban abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center that supports abortion rights.
Activists expect that demand will increase for medicationdriven terminations, which account for a third of all U.S. abortions. The regimen involves two drugs: mifepristone, sold in the U.S. by Danco Laboratories and branded Mifeprex, disrupts the pregnancy, then misoprostol triggers uterine contractions that expel the fetus.
In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration updated mifepristone’s labeling to lower the dose and let women use it through nine weeks of pregnancy. But women still have to make two visits to the doctor, and they can’t get the drug from pharmacies. It is to be dispensed only in clinics or medical offices by specially certified health care providers.
In contrast, Women on Web, which uses mifepristone made by an Indian company, provides pills after a woman consults online with the prescribing doctor and gets a blood test. An ultrasound is recommended, but not required. Instructions explain how to use the drugs, what to expect and when to see a doctor if problems occur.