If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in the months ahead, mail-order abortion drugs might enable millions of women to end pregnancies discreetly.
According to medical associations, abortion rights supporters, and national polls, most patients and physicians are unaware of the pills, how to acquire them, where to get follow-up treatment, and how to avoid legal issues.
Advocacy organizations are trying to educate consumers and physicians about medicine.
New Battle
In anticipation of a Roe v. Wade limitation or overturn this summer, pro-abortion and anti-abortion rights groups focused on the pill as a potential new battleground in the 50-year war.
Report: More than 3,000 lives have been saved by abortion pill reversal https://t.co/4xbqmyoUN8
— Live Action News (@LiveActionNews) April 23, 2022
Pro-pill organizations are running advertising on the New York City subway this month and driving mobile posters across Texas.
In anticipation of increased demand, organizations hire volunteers and employ people for 24-hour helplines that provide abortion pill information.
In May, several medical groups will start nationwide campaigns to instruct members on how to administer the medications and not turn patients over to cops.
Money is being raised to assist low-income women in paying for abortions, which may cost over $500.
It is possible that FDA-approved abortion drugs can avoid a return to the pre-Roe age of back-alley procedures, herbal mixtures, and coat hangers.
Though that won’t happen until more people know about and can get the medications, mifepristone, and misoprostol.
Anti-abortion groups have targeted the tablets, pushing dozens of states to prohibit them and establishing websites, advertising, and films to discourage their use. They’ve recently hailed pill limits in Kentucky, Georgia, and South Dakota.
Preventing the spread of harmful mail-order abortion medicines, which endanger both unborn children and their mothers, is crucial, according to Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
Yet, during the epidemic, patients wanted to avoid all in-person care, and some GOP-led states adopted laws restricting access to brick-and-mortar abortion clinics.
To stop a pregnancy, women in the US used medicines more than ever in 2017.
Texas Law
A recent study found that, despite rising use, just one in five people has heard of pharmaceutical abortion. Even informed individuals are prevented from using drugs by official drug laws and worry about the repercussions of their utilization.
The recent case of a young woman in Texas accused of homicide and jailed on $500,000 bail has compounded these fears.
After local campaigners organized, the charges were immediately dismissed. Though abortion-rights supporters say the narrative may scare patients and physicians away from prescribing the drugs.
The Texas law that allows private people to sue over alleged illegal abortions has caused much confusion and fear in the medical field.
This has led to the recent arrest of 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera, who was reported to police by the health workers she went to for help.
If Roe v. Wade is weakened or overturned, it opens the door for prosecutors to go after people for performing self-induced abortions.
What happened with Lizelle Herrera isn’t an outlier – it’s a vision of what’s to come if we don’t moblizie to protect abortion evcerywhere. https://t.co/9GWSVtHLPu
— Rachel O’Leary Carmona (@RachCarmona) April 22, 2022
His statement was about a Texas statute that several states are attempting to imitate and employing private litigation to enforce.
Perhaps one of the worries is that people of color and undocumented people who already have trouble getting health care may be scared to seek treatment if they need it after an abortion.
