Medication Abortions Are Increasing: What They Are and Where Women Get Them

Most abortions overseas involve pills, and the method is used in about half of legal U.S. abortions. It also seems to be the future of illicit abortion.

By Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz
May 9, 2022

Taking pills to end a pregnancy accounts for a growing share of abortions in the United States, both legal and not. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected, medication abortion will play a larger role, especially among women who lose access to abortion clinics.

What is medication abortion?
It’s a regimen of pills that women can take at home, a method increasingly used around the world.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/upshot/abortion-pills-medication-roe-v-wade.html

Most Women Denied Abortions by Texas Law Got Them Another Way

New data suggests overall abortions declined much less than previously known, because women traveled out of state or ordered pills online.

By Margot Sanger-Katz, Claire Cain Miller and Quoctrung Bui
March 6, 2022

The impact of the Texas abortion law was partly offset by trips to out-of-state clinics, and by abortion pills

In the months after Texas banned all but the earliest
abortions in September, the number of legal abortions in the state fell by
about half. But two new studies suggest the total number among Texas women fell
by far less — around 10 percent — because of large increases in the number of
Texans who traveled to a clinic in a nearby state or ordered abortion pills online.

Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin counted the
number of women using these alternative options. They found that while the
Texas law — which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be
detected, or around six weeks — lowered the number of abortions, it did so much
more modestly than earlier measurements suggested.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/upshot/texas-abortion-women-data.html

Why America’s Abortion Rate Might Be Higher Than It Appears

Why America’s Abortion Rate Might Be Higher Than It Appears
Evidence suggests more American women are “self-managing” their abortions.

By Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz
Sept. 20, 2019

The number of abortions performed in American clinics was lower in 2017 than in any year since abortion became legal nationwide in 1973, new data showed this week. But that does not count a growing number of women who are managing their abortions themselves, without going to a medical office — often by buying pills illicitly.

These “invisible” abortions are hard to measure, so it’s unclear how much higher the true abortion rate is. But researchers say self-managed abortions have risen as abortion has become more restricted in certain states, and as more people have learned that effective pills can be ordered online or purchased across the border.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/upshot/abortion-pills-rising-use.html

How Irish Women Are Getting Around Abortion Laws

Alexandra Sifferlin, Time.com

Oct. 18, 2016
A new study provides insight into women's use of the abortion pill

The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have some of the most restrictive laws surrounding abortion in the world. The procedure is illegal in both countries; the exception is only to save a pregnant woman’s life. In the midst of a debate in Ireland over whether abortion prohibitions should be reconsidered, a new study released on Monday provides insight into how women on both sides of the border are obtaining abortions—despite the restrictions.

[continued at link]
Source: Time.com

18.10.2016

Positive experiences by Irish women using online abortion service Women on Web reported in new scientific publication

For immediate release, Oct 17, 2016:
Women who accessed at-home early medical abortion using the online abortion service Women on Web in Ireland and Northern Ireland reported positive outcomes for health, wellbeing, and autonomy, according to new research.

The study examined both the demographics and circumstances of 5,650 women requesting early medical abortion between 2010 and 2015, and the experiences of 1,023 women who completed abortion from January 2010 to December 2012. Women were diverse with respect to age, pregnancy circumstances, and reasons for seeking abortion. Results were peer-reviewed and published in the international journal, British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG).

Study findings include:

Among women completing early medical at-home abortion, 97 percent felt they made the right choice and 98 percent would recommend it to others in a similar situation.
The only negative experiences commonly reported by women were the mental stress caused by pregnancies they did not want or felt they could not continue, and the stigma, fear, and isolation caused by current restrictive abortion laws.
The feelings women most commonly reported after completing abortion were ‘relieved’ (70 percent) and ‘satisfied’ (36 percent).
Women with financial hardship had twice the risk of lacking emotional support from family and friends.

“Women in Ireland and Northern Ireland accessing medical abortion through online telemedicine report overwhelmingly positive benefits for health, wellbeing, and autonomy,” Aiken said. “This examination and subsequent findings provide a new evidence to inform the policy debate surrounding abortion laws in Ireland and Northern Ireland.”

Funding for this research was in part provided by infrastructure grants for population research from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.

The study was published online first at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1471-0528.14401/full

For more information please contact the researcher:

Abigail R.A. Aiken, MD, MPH, PhD
Assistant Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs
email: araa2@utexas.edu

Source: Women on Web