Less than 48 hours after the Supreme Court said states could ban abortion, health care providers have noted a surge in interest in birth control, emergency contraception and abortion pills.
Especially in the nine states that had banned the procedure on Sunday, women seemed to fear more restricted access to family planning resources and some were stockpiling options. The surge in demand reflected growing concern that the court’s ruling was part of a broader effort to prevent Americans from determining for themselves when and whether to get pregnant.
After Katie Thomas, 42, learned that abortion would soon be illegal in Arkansas, she bought abortion pills for her 16-year-old daughter.
“Just the idea of something happening to my daughter, either by force or by choice, and there being an unwanted pregnancy, I want to be able to handle that,” Ms Thomas said. “If I need to handle that on my own, then I will.”
Ms. Thomas, of Little Rock, said she had already been stocking up on Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, in case her 21-year-old son and his girlfriend needed it. She bought even more on Friday.
Abigail Carroll, the 22-year-old founder of Abortion Access Nashville, said some young women were stockpiling Plan B, but warned people not to clear pharmacy shelves so those who need the pills now can get them.
Planned Parenthood Southeast in Atlanta was receiving more calls than usual from people concerned that their options around pregnancy were shrinking, said Lauren Frazier, a spokeswoman. “They want to know how many birth control pills they can store,” said Ms. Frazier, who said she also had questions about emergency contraception, vasectomies and tubal ligations.
Even before the Supreme Court ruling, abortion pills were becoming more popular. In 2020, more than half of abortions in the United States were medical abortions, according to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion access. And that number is expected to increase.
Conservative states that have banned medical abortion are likely to find it difficult to enforce it: Many patients choose the procedure because it is less expensive, less invasive and offers more privacy than surgical abortions.
Kiki Freedman, CEO of Hey Jane, a startup providing telemedicine abortions to women in six states, said patient demand doubled after the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Traffic to her website on Friday was 10 times higher than usual.
The court decision also seemed to fuel interest in long-acting reversible contraceptive methods, such as intrauterine devices.
A similar phenomenon occurred after Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, according to a 2019 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study did not assess the motivation of people who received IUDs at the time, but there was concern that women could lose access to birth control after Trump promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act on the campaign trail. electoral.
On Friday, a Nashville protester, Maria French, said she had recently replaced an IUD for fear of losing access to contraception. Abortions remain legal in Tennessee, but the ruling allows the state to effectively ban abortion within the next 30 days.
“I went and bought a new one because I saw this on the news and decided it was too scary for my liking,” said Mrs French, 24. She added: “I didn’t want to let mine expire and so she needs an abortion.”
The report was contributed by pam belluck, Sydney Cromwell, jamie mcgee Y Erica Sweney.
Reference-www.nytimes.com