A growing number of women said they tried to end their pregnancies on their own, doing things like taking herbs, drinking alcohol or even hitting their stomachs, a new study suggests.
Researchers interviewed women of reproductive age in the US before and after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade in June 2022. The proportion who reported trying to end the pregnancy themselves increased from 2.4% to 3.3%.
“A lot of people are taking things into their own hands,” said Dr. Grace Ferguson, a Pittsburgh obstetrician and gynecologist and abortion provider who was not involved in the research, which was published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The study authors acknowledged that the increase is small. But data suggests it could reach hundreds of thousands of women.
Investigators interviewed about 7,000 women six months before the Supreme Court ruling, and then another group of 7,100 a year after the ruling. They asked whether participants had ever taken or done anything on their own to end a pregnancy. Those who said yes were asked about their experiences.
“Our data shows that making abortion more difficult to access does not mean that people want or need an abortion less often,” said Lauren Ralph, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the study’s authors.
Women gave several reasons for handling their own abortions, such as wanting an extra measure of privacy, being concerned about the cost of clinical procedures, and preferring to try to terminate the pregnancy themselves first.
They reported using a variety of methods. Some took medications – including emergency contraception and abortion pills misoprostol and mifepristone obtained outside the medical system and without a prescription. Others drank alcohol or used drugs. Some resorted to potentially harmful physical methods, such as hitting themselves in the abdomen, lifting heavy things or inserting objects into the body.
Some interviewees said they suffered complications such as bleeding and pain and had to seek medical attention later. Some said they later had an abortion at a clinic. Some said the pregnancy ended after trying or after a miscarriage, while others said they continued the pregnancy when the method did not work.
Ralph pointed out some caveats and limits to the research. Respondents may be underreporting their abortions, she said, because researchers are asking them about “sensitive and potentially criminalized behavior.”
She also warned that some women may have understood the issue differently after the Dobbs decision, such as believing that getting a medication abortion through telehealth is outside the formal healthcare system when it is not. But Ralph said she and her colleagues tested how people interpreted the question before each survey was conducted.
The bottom line, Ferguson said, is that the study’s findings “confirm the statement we’ve been saying all along: If it’s difficult to get (an abortion) in a formal setting, people will just get it informally.”
The research was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and a third foundation listed as anonymous.
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AP Research Editor Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. AP is solely responsible for all content.
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