In anticipation of potential restrictions on abortion access, US women are proactively stocking up on abortion pills, recent studies have revealed. Abortion medications, most notably mifepristone, and misoprostol, are now more frequently being sought for "advance provision," essentially reserving the drugs for future use. A significant spike in requests routed through Aid Access, a Europe-based telemedicine provider - the first to offer such services in September 2021 - was tracked after news broke in May 2022 that the U.S. Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade, according to AP News.
Before the leaked information on the Supreme Court's decision, the average daily requests were around 25, which later skyrocketed nearly tenfold to 247. Interestingly, after the formal announcement of the Supreme Court's decision, the number dropped only to quickly rise again to 172 daily requests in April 2023, due to conflicting legal rulings on mifepristone, as per AP News.
The study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine and involved more than 48,000 requests for advanced abortion medications from September 2021 through April 2023. Data shows that requests were predominantly from white women over the age of 30, residing in urban environments, and without children. Dr. Abigail Aiken of the University of Texas at Austin, involved with the study, pointed out that these demographic shifts might "point to access barriers or information barriers," signaling the necessity for additional research to understand these trends fully, as stated in the Austin Monitor.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, a non-involving researcher from the University of California, San Francisco, mentioned "Advance provision isn’t yet reaching people who face the greatest barriers to abortion care." Shedding light on these inequities is crucial as the battle over abortion access continues to unfold across the nation, as reported by AP News.
