Thousands of women in states with abortion bans and limitations are getting abortion pills in the mail from states with prescriber protection laws, according to a new investigation.
According to the #WeCount survey released on Tuesday, approximately 8,000 women per month in states that severely restrict abortion or limit access to one through telehealth will receive the pills by mail by the end of 2023, marking the first time a number has been assigned to how frequently the medical system workaround is used. The Society of Family Planning, a proponent of abortion rights, conducted the study.
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An additional 8,000 women in states that do not have prohibitions or major limits on telehealth abortion received drugs during virtual appointments per month, according to the report.
Overall, the survey found that medical professionals will perform approximately 90,000 surgical or medication abortions every month in 2023, which is up from the previous year. Another recent study indicated that over two-thirds of the population takes tablets.
The study discovered that by December 2023, physicians in states with protections were providing tablets to approximately 6,000 women per month in states where abortion was prohibited at all stages of pregnancy or once heart activity was detected—roughly six weeks, sometimes before women realized they were pregnant. In jurisdictions where local laws restrict abortion pill prescriptions via telemedicine, approximately 2,000 women received the prescriptions each month.
“People… are using the various mechanisms to get the pills that are out there,” Drexel University law professor David Cohen stated. It “is not surprising based on what we know throughout human history and across the world: People will find a way to terminate pregnancies they don’t want.”
Medication abortions usually include a combination of two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. The rise of these medicines is one reason why total abortions have grown even after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022.
According to a Pew Research Center poll from April, Americans are far more likely to believe that their state should allow medication abortion rather than outlaw it. The poll, which did not take into account legislation protecting prescribers, revealed that over half of U.S. adults support the legalization of pharmaceutical abortion in their state, while one-fifth support its outlawing, and nearly a quarter remain uncertain.
Most Republican-controlled states implemented abortion laws after overturning Roe. Fourteen states now outlaw it with minimal restrictions, and three more ban it after six weeks of pregnancy.
However, several Democratic-controlled states went the opposite way. They’ve passed legislation to protect people in their states from investigations into abortion-related offenses by authorities in other jurisdictions. By the end of last year, five of those states—Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Washington—had such safeguards in place specifically to cover abortion pill prescriptions via telemedicine.
“If a Colorado provider provides telehealth care to a patient who’s in Texas, Colorado will not participate in any Texas criminal action or civil lawsuit,” Cohen stated. Colorado asserts that the care they provided in our state was lawful. “It complies with our regulations because the provider resides in our state.”
Wendy Stark, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, described the shield law as “a critical win for abortion access in our state.”
James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, asserts that the legislation in the abortion location, not the prescriber, should govern pill-by-telemedicine abortions. He stated that this is also true for other laws.
However, unlike many other areas of abortion regulation, no one has yet challenged this question in court.
According to Bopp, a prosecutor in a jurisdiction where abortions are illegal can only challenge a shield statute in court by accusing an out-of-state doctor of performing an illegal abortion.
“It’ll probably occur, and we’ll get a legal challenge,” Bopp stated.
Researchers highlight that before the shield laws went into place, people obtained abortion pills from sources outside of the established medical system, although it is unclear how many.
The organization is not revealing the number of pills shipped to each state under a ban “to maintain the highest level of protection for individuals receiving that care and providers providing that care,” according to Alison Norris, an epidemiologist at Ohio State University and the lead researcher on the #WeCount report.
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, director of Aid Access, an abortion pill supplier that works with US doctors, believes that stronger shield legislation will strengthen the healthcare system.
“They’re extremely important because they make doctors and providers feel safe and protected,” said Gomperts, whose organization’s statistics were included in the #WeCount study. “I hope what we will see in the end is that all the states that are not banning abortion will adopt shield laws.”
