An analysis suggests that threats of abortion access drive demand for abortion pills

Study of requests for abortion medication given to Aid Access in the US from 2021 to 2020, and a response to U.S. abortion bans

Between September of 2021 and April of 2020 a study was conducted on requests for abortion medication that was given to Aid Access, an Austria-based nonprofit with abortion services in the US.

There was a spike in the number of requests for advance provision when patients appeared to think there was a threat to abortion access.

“If you go up, they go up quickly,” she says. “So it seems possible that people are really responding to the threat of reduced abortion access.”

In the spring of 2023, a lawsuit challenging access to the drug was working its way through the legal system. The Supreme Court is going to take a look at that case next year.

In response to a request for comment on Aiken’s analysis, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) described mifepristone as “a very safe and effective drug,” and said the data suggest that “people are worried about needing abortion care and being unable to access it in the future due to abortion bans. Some people can travel to states where the care is legal, but not others.

Patients can’t access Mifepristone and clinicians can’t prescribe it in advance because of federal health regulations.

Nonetheless, Aid Access founder Dr. Rebecca Gomperts said in an email to NPR that some U.S.-based physicians living in states that have enacted protections for providers known as “shield laws” are prescribing the pills in advance. The medication can last 2 years if it is kept sealed and not exposed to heat, light, or humidity, said Gomperts.

How will we get there, and what will we have to do about it? A study of the costs of abortion care in the U.S.

She says that there are huge increases in states with potential legislation coming. People are reacting to the potential threat to access by asking, “Oh, I better prepare for what might be coming.” “

“We know that people struggle to pay for abortion care even if they need it,” she says. “So it might be a very different financial calculus, and these financial barriers might loom large for people.”