Wading without Roe — where do you go?

California becomes a last-resort haven for patients seeking to end pregnancies

By Audrey Tomlin • Bay City News
Oct 11, 2025

In September 2023, Marcela Bermudez bought a one-way ticket, stepped on a plane in Houston, Texas, and flew more than 1,000 miles to Los Angeles, California. She was 25 years old. She was 14 weeks pregnant. She did not want to be. Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing the federal constitutional right to an abortion, had been overturned 15 months earlier. In Texas, abortion was banned.

Bermudez was one of nearly 7,000 patients who traveled to California from out of state for an abortion that year. She, alongside other patients who crossed state lines for abortion care, shared memories of long, costly travels, overwhelming stigma, and the need for much effort and a little bit of luck — the right friend or a supportive partner — to receive their abortions.

Continued: https://localnewsmatters.org/2025/10/11/wading-without-roe-california-a-last-resort-haven-for-patients-trying-to-end-pregnancies/

What to Know About the Latest Court Ruling on the Abortion Pill

The upshot: Don’t panic.

MADISON PAULY, Mother Jones
Aug 16, 2023

Earlier this spring, the Supreme Court hit pause on a controversial ruling in a massive anti-abortion lawsuit with the potential to eliminate nationwide access to the most common method of abortion. The case, brought by anti-abortion organizations and doctors, challenged the FDA’s two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, a pill used in medication abortion.

In April, a far-right federal district court judge in Texas had sided with the anti-abortion doctors, issuing an unprecedented order to suspend mifepristone’s approval. But before his decision could take effect, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to step in and pause the order while it went through appeals. The Court agreed.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/08/abortion-pill-mifepristone-texas-supreme-court-ruling/

Blue-state doctors launch abortion pill pipeline into states with bans

by Caroline Kitchener, The Washington Post
July 23, 2023

The doctor starts each day with a list of addresses and a label maker.

Sitting in her basement in New York's Hudson Valley, next to her grown children's old bunk beds, she reviews the list of towns and cities she'll be mailing to that day: Baton Rouge, Tucson, Houston.

A month ago, a phone call was the only thing the doctor could offer to women in states with abortion bans who faced unexpected pregnancies. Hamstrung by the laws, she could only coach them through the process of taking abortion pills they received from overseas suppliers.

Continued: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2023/jul/23/blue-state-doctors-launch-abortion-pill-pipeline/

The New Threat to Abortion Access in the United States—The Comstock Act

I. Glenn Cohen, JD; Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS; Mary Ziegler, JD
JAMA. Published online July 13, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.9360

In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there have been many legislative attempts to restrict abortion, as well as lawsuits seeking to buttress those initiatives or further restrict abortion. Such litigation has centered, among other things, on whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act overrides potentially conflicting state laws that seek to limit abortion exceptions for the health and life of the mother, whether the US Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone was unlawful, and whether abortion bans violate various state constitutions.

In this Viewpoint we discuss an issue that that has received less attention and is being litigated in several courts—the Comstock Act. … We explain the history of this old law, its use by those seeking to restrict abortion, and why it threatens abortion access in the US.

Continued: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2807457

13.07.2023

Editorial

Comstock Act

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

Jonathan F. Mitchell

mailing abortion pills

USA – “It Was Really Empowering”—5 Women Reflect on Their Medication Abortion Experience

We can’t stress this enough: You can have a safe abortion at home.

Christen A. Johnson
MAY 10, 2023

Let’s talk about mifepristone, aka the hard-to-pronounce drug that when used in combination with other hard-to-pronounce drug misoprostol is actually extremely safe and effective at ending unwanted pregnancies in the privacy of your own home. You’ve probably seen mifepristone in the news recently. Why, you ask? Because certain members of the right wing are completely fixated on ruthlessly attacking reproductive rights and eliminating body autonomy in our country. Ah, I love it here.

Continued: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a43193640/mail-order-abortion-pills/

Permanent access to at-home abortions to be granted in England and Wales

Abortion Act to be amended from 30 August after ministers forced to ditch plans to scrap ‘pills by post’ service

Andrew Gregory, Health editor
Tue 23 Aug 2022

Women in England and Wales will be able to permanently access early medical abortions at home from next week after ministers were forced to abandon plans to scrap the “pills by post” service.

The move will benefit thousands of women who wish to take the tablets needed to end a pregnancy in the privacy of their own home, rather than having to take the first pills at a clinic or hospital.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/23/permanent-access-to-at-home-abortions-to-be-granted-in-england-and-wales

23.08.2022

Featured

News

abortion pills at home

abortion pills by post

at-home abortion

Maggie Throup

mailing abortion pills

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

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/

Abortion pill use spikes in Texas as thousands of patients circumvent state’s ban

Orders for the drugs from an international nonprofit spiked 1,180 percent in the first week after the Texas law took effect in September.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
02/25/2022

Texans have been ordering abortion pills online at record rates in the wake of the state’s law banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, according to a new study published Friday in JAMA Network Open.

Orders for the drugs from the international nonprofit Aid Access spiked 1,180 percent in the first week after the Texas law took effect in September, increasing from about 11 purchases per day to more than 137 per day. And though orders decreased over the next few months, researchers found that they remained 175 percent higher than before the Texas law took effect.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/25/abortion-pill-use-spikes-in-texas-as-thousands-of-patients-circumvent-states-ban-00011728

The fragility of abortion access in Europe: a public health crisis in the making

The Lancet
CORRESPONDENCE| VOLUME 398, ISSUE 10299, P485, AUGUST 07, 2021
Céline Miani and Oliver Razum

Poland is rightly being criticised for suppressing abortion services.1 Since January, 2021, abortion is only legal if the pregnancy is directly life-threatening or the result of rape or incest. However, countries with allegedly more progressive policies have reasons to be self-critical as well.

An example is Germany, considered a liberal country in terms of abortion law from an international perspective, since women can be granted an abortion on request for any reason, including socioeconomic reasons. Yet, abortion in Germany is technically a crime (albeit not punished up to 12 weeks from conception), and gynaecologists are losing court cases for stating on their websites that they provide abortion care in a supportive environment.2 Attacks on abortion rights and services are nourished by vocal conservative and religious forces whose agendas find support in a non-negligible share of the population.

Continued: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01225-3/fulltext

U.S.-Based Online Pharmacy First to Ship Abortion Pills to Patients Inside the U.S.

9/30/2020
by CARRIE N. BAKER

For years, pharmacies outside the U.S. have been shipping abortion pills to American women wanting to end their pregnancies. But now, for the first time, a U.S.-based pharmacy—Honeybee Health—is distributing abortion pills directly to patients within the country by mail, now legal because of a recent federal court ruling.

“This is a momentous achievement for Americans, particularly for women of color and others who historically faced barriers to reproductive healthcare that are made even worse by COVID-19,” said Dr. Jessica Nouhavandi, co-founder, co-CEO and lead pharmacist of Honeybee Health.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/09/30/honeybee-health-us-based-online-pharmacy-first-to-ship-abortion-pills-to-patients-inside-the-u-s/