Abortion pill requests among women who aren't pregnant spiked after Dobbs leak: Study

Requests for abortion medication among women who are not pregnant spiked in the days after the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision leaked, according to research published Tuesday. 

Citing data from the telemedicine abortion pill provider Aid Access, the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found requests to the organization spiked in May 2022 when a draft of the Supreme Court decision was leaked.  

Between September 2021 and May 2022, Aid Access received about 25 requests per day. After the Dobbs decision was leaked, the group logged nearly 250 requests per day.  

Requests dipped slightly after the ruling was official, but they spiked again after conflicting court rulings in spring 2023 regarding the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone.  

Medication abortion using the two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol is the most common method of ending a pregnancy in the U.S. and accounts for more than half of all abortions in the country. More than 5 million people have used mifepristone since it was approved in 2000, and it’s legal to use within the first 10 weeks of a pregnancy. 

The Supreme Court last month agreed to hear an appeal from the Biden administration and a drug manufacturer asking the high court to overturn an appeals court ruling that among other restrictions would eliminate telehealth prescribing and access to abortion pills through the mail, even in states where abortion is legal. 

An argument date isn’t set, but a decision likely will come in June, almost exactly two years after the same justices overturned Roe v. Wade.  

Between September 1, 2021, and April 30, 2023, Aid Access received 48,404 requests for abortion pills from women who were not pregnant but wanted the drugs just in case — a practice called advance provision. 

The requests for advance provision were highest in states considering future abortion bans, even compared with states that already had some restrictions in place. 

Requestors said they were motivated by a desire to preserve reproductive autonomy and to prepare for possible abortion restrictions. 

Compared with those requesting self-managed abortion, a higher proportion of those requesting advance provision were 30 years or older, self-identified as White, had no children and lived in an urban region with a poverty rate lower than the national average. 

The demographic differences in requestors of advance provision compared to self-management likely reflect structural barriers to reproductive health, the study concluded. It also could be related to how Aid Access functions — the organization charges $150 for people who want the pills in advance, but it offers a sliding scale and financial assistance for people who are pregnant.