USA – Why an ulcer drug could be the last option for many abortion patients

February 24, 2023
Sarah McCammon
3-Minute Listen with Transcript

A federal judge in Texas could rule as soon as today on whether to cut off access to a key medication abortion protocol, giving lawyers until day's end to submit additional arguments. Fearing another major blow to abortion access, some providers are already considering alternatives.

At the Trust Women clinic in Wichita, Kansas, it's already been crisis mode for months. And now clinic Director Ashley Brink says the staff is bracing for another — maybe even bigger — wave of uncertainty.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159075709/abortion-drug-mifepristone-misoprotol-texas-case

USA – How Abortion Providers Are Planning for a Ruling That Could Force Mifepristone Off the Market

2/21/2023
by PHOEBE KOLBERT, Ms. Magazine

The ruling in a lawsuit out of Texas seeking to reverse FDA approval of mifepristone is expected as soon as this week. If Trump-appointed District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rules in favor of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the far-right group bringing suit, mifepristone would be forced off the market and clinics’ capacities could significantly fall.

The Trust Women clinic in Wichita, Kansas—where abortion is currently legal up to 21 weeks—already gets more than 16,000 calls a day and is booking out weeks ahead. If the clinic is forced to stop providing medication abortions, its capacity will be greatly reduced. Aspiration abortions must be performed in person, with specialized equipment, and appointments can be more than three hours long—three times that of medication abortion appointments. Ashley Brink, the clinic director of Trust Women, said the clinic would only be able to serve a fraction of their current patient load if they could only provide aspiration abortions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/02/21/texas-mifepristone-lawsuit-criminalize-abortion/

Abortion Pill Providers Experiment With Ways to Broaden Access

These new efforts, which test the legal boundaries, have sprung up since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and many states restricted abortion.

By Pam Belluck
Sept. 3, 2022

As bans and restrictions proliferate across the country, abortion pill providers are pushing the envelope of regulations and laws to meet the surging demand for medication abortion in post-Roe America.

Some are using physician discretion to prescribe pills to patients further along in pregnancy than the 10-week limit set by the Food and Drug Administration. Some are making pills available to women who are not pregnant but feel they could need them someday. Some are employing a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach, providing telemedicine consultations and prescriptions without verifying that patients are in states that permit abortion.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/03/health/abortion-pill-access-roe-v-wade.html

Americans scramble for abortions in states that have banned it

New avenues are emerging, but logistical hassles are everywhere

By RUTH READER and BEN LEONARD
July 11, 2022

Demand for pills that end pregnancy has skyrocketed in states that have restricted abortion since the Supreme Court decision last month, and abortion clinics are reporting a rush for appointments in towns bordering those states.

Aid Access, a virtual abortion clinic based in the Netherlands, saw a 256 percent increase in people coming to its site in the 24 hours after the court’s June 24 decision.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/teleabortions-high-demand-abortion-pill-00044005

USA – To get banned abortion pills, patients turn to legally risky tactics

Mail-forwarding services and telehealth appointments from border-state parking lots circumvent state bans on FDA-approved drugs

By Christopher Rowland
July 6, 2022

Before spreading the word about how to circumvent state bans on abortion pills, Elisa Wells conducted a trial run of sorts, using dried garbanzo beans.

Wells, co-founder of the nonprofit abortion advocacy website Plan C, was testing whether commercial mail-forwarding services could serve as a link in a surreptitious supply chain from abortion-friendly states to states where abortion pills are banned.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/abortion-pills-mail-telehealth/

Inside the Effort to Promote Abortion Pills For a Post-Roe America

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS AND JAMIE DUCHARME
MAY 31, 2022

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as a leaked draft opinion suggests it may, abortion will likely be banned or severely restricted in about half of the United States. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the country will return to a world before 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court case enshrined a constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion pills, which can be ordered online and delivered by mail, have already fundamentally changed reproductive rights in America. The regimen of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, can in theory be safely taken anywhere, including in the privacy of people’s homes, eliminating the need to undergo a procedure, travel out of state, take time off work, or confront protestors outside of a clinic. In part because of this convenience, abortion pills—also known as medication abortion—are now the most common method of ending a pregnancy in the U.S.

https://time.com/6181162/abortion-pill-access-roe-v-wade/

31.05.2022

abortion pills by mail

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Food and Drug Administration

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Physicians for Reproductive Health

Plan C

Repro Legal Helpline

Reproductive Health Education in Family Medicine

Roe v. Wade

self-managed abortion

social media and abortion

telemedicine abortion

USA – The Mail-Order Abortion Boom Is Here

Inside telemedicine’s rocky road to bring abortion care into the 21st century.

Ali Pattillo
Updated May. 28, 2022

As Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance, telemedicine startups offering mail-order abortion pills are scrambling to meet surges in demand for remote abortion care across the United States. These sleek, modern tech companies like Hey Jane, Just the Pill, and Carafem claim to offer safe, seamless, and effective abortion care at a distance.

Leah Coplon, a nurse midwife, abortion provider, and director of clinical operations at tele-abortion company Abortion on Demand, told The Daily Beast that countless patients remind her of the essential nature of this digital approach—patients who are living with abusive partners and are stealthily obtaining pills, patients in rural areas of the country where travelling to a clinic poses challenges, young people who do not feel safe disclosing their need for care, and those with common everyday obstacles like getting time off work, childcare, or transportation.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/telemedicine-is-paving-a-post-roe-path-for-abortion-through-mail-order-medication

USA – Telemedicine options for abortion are here to stay

Through pandemic necessity, an ad-hoc, telehealth model for reproductive healthcare is sticking around.

By KYLIE CHEUNG
PUBLISHED JUNE 20, 2021

As much of the country prepares to return to some form of post-pandemic normalcy, reproductive health care providers and advocates hope we continue one vital pandemic tradition: telemedicine options for receiving and providing reproductive care from home.

Some researchers and providers have found offering medication abortion care via telehealth is crucial to bridging gaps in abortion access. Abortion medication care is safe and effective up to 10 weeks into one's pregnancy, and providers say that having a telehealth component to abortion care may even help establish greater medical trust and comfort for patients from marginalized communities seeking care.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/06/20/telehealth-abortion-access-pandemic/

USA – These Start-Ups Could Make Abortion One Click Away

During the pandemic, women have been able to get abortion pills to take at home through an email or phone call. Will it stay that way?

Emily Shugerman, Gender Reporter
Updated May. 16, 2021

In California right now, you can get an abortion without speaking to a single other human being. You log onto a website—mychoix.co—put in your health information, answer some questions, and wait for an email from a clinician letting you know if you’ve been approved. If you are, an online pharmacy will ship you a package of mifepristone and misoprostol—a two-pill regime that is safer than many prescription drugs and 98 percent effective at terminating early-stage pregnancies. You will take it, you will bleed, your pregnancy will—in all likelihood—end.

This particular configuration is available in only one state, for a limited time, due to an emergency declaration issued by the Food and Drug Administration during the pandemic. But make no mistake: This is the future abortion advocates want.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-start-ups-could-make-abortion-one-click-away

16.05.2021

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Abortions Can Happen Safely—and Entirely—at Home

LEAH COPLON AND CLAIRE BRINDIS , Newsweek
ON 2/22/21

Last year, over concerns of exposure to COVID-19, a federal judge ended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's requirement that mifepristone, a medication necessary to terminate an early pregnancy, must be obtained directly from a hospital or provider's office.

On January 12, the Supreme Court reinstated that requirement, over the objection of medical organizations. The ruling put us right back where we were: Among the 20,000 medications regulated by the FDA, mifepristone is the only one that requires an in-person pickup.

Continued: https://www.newsweek.com/abortions-can-happen-safely-entirely-home-opinion-1570687