USA – The Most Popular Digital Abortion Clinics, Ranked by Data Privacy

Telehealth companies that provide abortion pills are surging in popularity. Which are as safe as they claim to be?

Kristen Poli
Aug 21, 2023

A NEW CLASS of health care startups has emerged in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to abortion last year. These “digital abortion clinics” connect patients with health care providers who are able to prescribe mifepristone and misoprostol, a course of care commonly described as the “abortion pill.”

These services, many of which were founded before Dobbs v. Jackson, are poised to eliminate a major paradox in the field of reproductive health: Medication abortion is currently the most common way to terminate a pregnancy, yet only 1 in 4 adults are familiar with it, according to a recent study by KFF.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/most-popular-digital-telehealth-medication-abortion-ranked-data-privacy/

One Woman’s Story Of Self-Managing Her Abortion In An Anti-Choice State

Managing your own abortion is not a crime in Ohio, but a politically motivated prosecutor might believe Julia should be punished for what she did.

By Alanna Vagianos
Aug 7, 2023

SOMEWHERE IN OHIO — It’s a pretty short drive to the polling site from the cabin where Julia has been self-managing her abortion. Julia took the last of her abortion pills the day before, which she believes have ended her unwanted pregnancy. She still has some minor cramping and is tired from the whole ordeal, but she feels reasonably OK — well enough to go vote on a ballot referendum that could help decide the fate of abortion rights in Ohio.

Issue 1, a ballot initiative to raise the threshold to alter the state constitution from a simple majority — the standard in Ohio for over a century — to 60%, is a preemptive attempt to block a pro-choice constitutional amendment that Ohioans will vote on in November.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-womans-story-of-self-managing-her-abortion-in-an-anti-choice-state_n_64c03e6be4b053a7009335eb

USA – Group using ‘shield laws’ to provide abortion care in states that ban it

Aid Access ships medication abortion to all 50 states under the protection provided to clinicians serving patients in banned states

Rebecca Grant
Sun 23 Jul 2023

Dr Linda Prine is providing abortion access to people in all 50 states, even those that have banned it. That might seem like an admission to be discreet about in post-Roe America, but Prine and her colleagues at Aid Access, a telemedicine abortion service, are doing it openly and in a way they believe is on firm legal ground.

On 14 July, Aid Access announced that over the past month, a team of seven doctors, midwives and nurse practitioners have mailed medication abortion to 3,500 people under the protection of “shield laws”, which protect clinicians who serve patients in states where providing abortion is illegal. As soon as she learned about shield laws, Prine knew it represented an opportunity to go on the offensive, for those bold enough to try it.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/23/shield-laws-provide-abortion-care-aid-access

Abortion advocacy group Plan C informs people how to get abortion pills in every state

Plan C has been a resource for those seeking abortion medication information online since before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

By Rebekah Sager
July 11, 2023

Since its founding in 2014, the Plan C network has been determined to make sure that the comprehensive information on its website continues to help those seeking abortion medication — particularly in states where abortion care has been restricted or banned.

Plan C offers current and updated information about how to access at-home abortion medication. It lists all of the options available, depending on where a person lives: telehealth services, local community support networks offering free or generic pills, and a list of websites that sell the pills. The site additionally lists the costs and the number of days it takes for at-home delivery.

Continued: https://americanindependent.com/abortion-advocacy-group-plan-c-medication-states-bans/

11.07.2023

“The Message They’ve Received Is That You Don’t Deserve to Be Cared For”: Life on the Abortion Borderland

Patients seeking abortions are flooding across state lines—while anti-abortion activists try to shut clinics down.

June 23, 2023
AMY LITTLEFIELD

One day each week, the Rev. Erika Ferguson puts on leggings and a sweatshirt, pulls her hair back under a baseball cap, and heads to a North Texas airport to meet a group of people who need abortions. She shepherds the strangers through security and onto a short flight to Albuquerque, N.M. There, the group spends the day at an abortion clinic, and later they watch rom-coms in an office packed with cots, tea, and homemade cookies. The women Ferguson has accompanied represent a cross section of Texans—Black, Latina, Asian, and white. There have been rape victims and teenagers. There have been moms with teenage children at home. “I’ve taken women from all walks of life, from all ages,” Ferguson told me.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-clinics-dobbs-texas/

USA – People are using abortion medication later in their pregnancies. Here’s what that means.

The regimen is common and considered safe after 10 weeks, but the delays are cause for concern.

By Anna North
Jun 18, 2023

A patient takes one medication, mifepristone, which stops the pregnancy from developing, followed one to two days later by another medication, misoprostol, which induces contractions that empty the uterus. The regimen, approved for abortions in the US since 2000, is effective and very safe, according to physicians and researchers, with a low incidence of serious side effects, and it’s the most common method of abortion in the US. It’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the first 70 days, or 10 weeks, of pregnancy, though the World Health Organization recommends medication abortion for up to 12 weeks.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, however, nothing about abortion is simple anymore. With near-total abortion bans in place in more than a dozen states and gestational limits in several others, the procedure is growing harder to access by the day. Meanwhile, a federal court case is casting further doubt on the future of mifepristone’s availability in the US.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/23755658/abortion-pill-second-trimester-mifepristone-misoprostol

USA – Inside the Secretive Network of Abortion Pill Vigilantes

Since the fall of Roe, a covert chain of activists have banded together to provide abortion medication to those in red states—and they’re risking everything in the process.

Decca Muldowney
May 23, 2023

Denny spends many of their days sitting on their bed packing small pills into plastic ziplock bags, and then into brown envelopes, ready to be mailed out to people seeking abortion medications in states like Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

The pills are mifepristone and misoprostol—two medications that are the subject of intense political and legal debate. Every package of pills Denny mails out puts them in danger. But they won’t stop doing it.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/abortion-pill-vigilantes-are-operating-a-covert-network-from-mexico-to-republican-states

The Supreme Court Can’t Stop Underground Abortion Networks. And They’re Thriving.

“No matter what laws and bans are out there, people are going to find a way to get access to the care that they need.”

By Carter Sherman
April 21, 2023

A common, safe, and effective abortion pill could be yanked from the market or placed under restrictions by midnight Friday, depending on the outcome of the first major abortion case to hit the Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year. Abortion clinics across the country have spent weeks bracing for this moment, consulting with lawyers and rapidly recalculating if and how they will perform abortions if they’re forced to change how they use the drug, mifepristone.

But regardless of any ruling from the Supreme Court on the fate of mifepristone, the nation’s highest court can only control the legal market for the drug. It has no real ability to dictate what happens within the thriving world of underground abortion networks—where mifepristone has continued to flow and where demand for the drug will likely skyrocket, rather than fall, if the Supreme Court tries to cut off the U.S. health care system’s supply.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ak3g98/mifepristone-supreme-court-ruling-wont-stop-underground-abortion-pill-network

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 – The Underground Abortion Pill Network Is Booming

At least 20,000 abortion pills are estimated to have been shipped across the U.S. in the six months since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

By Carter Sherman
February 23, 2023

At least 20,000 packets of abortion pills were shipped to people in the United States in the six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, two sources with knowledge of the situation told VICE News.

The suppliers of these estimated 20,000 packets are neither abortion clinics nor abortion telehealth organizations, but instead operate outside of the U.S. legal health care system. The demand for their pills, as well as their success at shipping them out undetected, are evidence of the thriving underground abortion network that has sprung up since Roe’s demise devastated access to abortion clinics.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k85wg/underground-abortion-pill-network