'Tip of the iceberg': US self-managed abortions soar post-Roe, study shows

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/self-managed-abortions-avoid-bans

No paywall link
https://archive.li/9bsD0

In the six months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, roughly 26,000 more Americans used pills to induce their own at-home abortions than would have done so if Roe had not fallen, according to a new study.

Published on Monday in Jama, one of the leading peer-reviewed medical journals in the United States, the study comes ahead of a key Tuesday hearing at the US supreme court at which the justices will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine the future of a major abortion pill, mifepristone.

Pills are used in 63% of all abortions within the US healthcare system, and the study suggests they are being used by even more people than previously known in order to evade abortion restrictions that now blanket much of the US.

Analyzing data from abortion pill suppliers who operate outside of the US healthcare system, the study provides a rare window into the growing practice known as “self-managed abortion”. Although definitions of self-managed abortion can vary, the practice generally refers to abortions that take place outside the formal healthcare system, without the aid of a US-based clinician.

*snip*

[qwlauren35]

1. I always knew that this would happen.

BUT! It's not as bad as I had worried about.

My worry was that abortion pills would end up on the black market, and be dangerous. That's not the case. With telehealth, a person who is having complications from an abortion can get real-time advice. With access to safe medicines abroad, a person who needs to circumvent draconian laws has options.

What we really need to do is make sure that women around the country have access to safe abortion pills, that they can use as soon as they discover that they are pregnant.

What I'm suggesting is actually illegal. Not too terribly worried about it.

[niyad]

2. It continues to amaze me that those f'n woman-haters seem to think

that women will just quietly, meekly, subserviently, allow them to keep f'n us over.