Although their states severely restrict abortion or set limits on getting an abortion via telehealth, about 8,000 women a month at the end of last year were receiving abortion pills in the mail from states with legal protections for prescribers, a new survey finds.
The release of the #WeCount report on Tuesday is the first time a number has been put on how often the medical system’s workaround is being used. The research was carried out for the Family Planning Society, which supports abortion rights.
The group found that, as of December 2023, providers in states with protections were prescribing pills to about 6,000 women per month in states where abortion was banned at all stages of pregnancy or when cardiac activity could be detected — about six weeks, often before the women realized it. they are pregnant. Prescriptions also went to about 2,000 women a month in states where local laws limit telemedicine prescriptions for abortion pills.
“People … are using a variety of mechanisms to get the pills that are out there,” said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University. This is “not surprising based on what we know throughout human history and around the world: People will find a way to terminate pregnancies they don’t want.”
Medication abortions typically involve a combination of two medications: mifepristone and misoprostol. The rise of these pills, now used for the majority of abortions in the US, is one reason the total number of abortions rose even after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade in 2022. The research found that total monthly abortions hovered around 90,000 in 2023 – higher than last year.
After Roe was overturned, abortion bans went into effect in most Republican-controlled states. Fourteen states ban it now, with few exceptions, while another three ban it after about six weeks of pregnancy.
But many Democratic-controlled states have gone the opposite way. They have adopted laws designed to protect people in their states from investigations involving abortion-related crimes by authorities in other states. As of late last year, five of those states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Washington — had such protections in place specifically to cover telemedicine abortion pill prescriptions.
“If a Colorado provider provides telehealth care to a patient who is in Texas, Colorado will not participate in any criminal or civil action in Texas,” Cohen said. “Colorado says, ‘The care provided in our state was legal. It follows our laws because the provider was in our state.’”
Wendy Stark, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, called the protection law “a critical victory for abortion access in our state.”
James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said the law where the abortion occurs — not where the prescriber is located — should apply to telemedicine abortions. That’s how it is with other laws, he said.
But unlike many other aspects of abortion policy, this issue has not yet been tested in court.
Bopp said the only way to challenge a protection law in court would be for a prosecutor from a prohibited state to accuse an out-of-state doctor of performing an illegal abortion.
“That will probably happen and we will have a legal challenge,” Bopp said.
The researchers note that before the protection laws went into effect, people obtained abortion pills from sources outside the formal medical system, but it’s unclear exactly how many.
Alison Norris, an epidemiologist at Ohio State University and lead researcher on the #WeCount report, said the group is not detailing how many pills were sent to each state with a ban “to maintain the highest level of protection for individuals receiving this care.” ”. and providers who provide this care.
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, director of Aid Access, an abortion pill provider that works with U.S. suppliers, said having more protective laws will make the healthcare system more resilient.
“They are extremely important because they make doctors and providers feel safe and secure,” said Gomperts, whose organization’s numbers were included in the #WeCount report. “I hope that eventually we will see that all states that do not ban abortion adopt protective laws.”
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