Perceptions of abortion bans driving surge in non-pregnant women requesting abortion drugs

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Data from a European organization that has vowed to continue shipping abortion pills into the United States show a spike in the number of non-pregnant women requesting the drug, particularly after the leak of the Supreme Court decision that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade. 

Women who have a medication abortion, also known as a chemical abortion, take two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. The first drug, mifepristone (RU-486), stops the flow of progesterone, while misoprostol causes cramping and severe bleeding and induces contractions followed by a miscarriage.  

According to a study published last week by the Journal of the American Medical Association, women seeking abortion pills through a process called "advance provision" appeared to spike during times when they believed abortion could be restricted. 

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The study analyzed data from Aid Access, a Netherlands-based group that started offering abortion pills to non-pregnant women after Texas implemented its six-week abortion ban in 2021. 

According to the data, between September 2021 and April 2023, Aid Access received more than 48,000 advance provision requests. The requests appeared to coincide with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision leak and, later, the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. Women who made the requests were more likely to be white, aged 30 or older, and live in an urban area.

According to NBC News, the study's author, Abigail Aiken, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas at Austin, anticipates another spike in advance provision requests. Aiken’s prediction comes as the Supreme Court considers a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Food & Drug Administration loosening the restrictions on mifepristone.

Melanie Israel, a policy analyst for the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation, told The Christian Post that the study was “troubling” but added that its results were unsurprising. 

Israel suggested that one possible reason for the increase in advance provision requests is media headlines insinuating that abortion restrictions prevent women from receiving treatment for pregnancy complications. Israel noted that while these claims are untrue, they heighten people’s sense of fear.

She also noted the risks associated with women ordering the abortion pill online, as without an in-person screening, it’s impossible to determine how far along the woman is or if she’s experiencing any health complications that could endanger her life.

Israel contended that groups like Aid Access are harming American women by ignoring the country’s laws and putting women’s health and safety at risk. 

“These pills are dangerous, and they harm women when they're used the way they're quote-unquote, supposed to be used, when people follow FDA guidelines,” Israel said. “And so, removing yet another layer of safety, yet another layer of protection, is going to harm women more.”

Regarding the Supreme Court abortion pill case, Israel said she believes there will be more fearmongering from abortion proponents and the media, which she noted could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, where more women then begin to seek out an advance provision of the abortion pill.

“It’s really important, as this case makes its way, for the pro-life movement to be relentless in educating people about the dangers of these pills, and why this Supreme Court case is so important, and why these safety protocols that the FDA has been weakening are so, so necessary to protect women,” she said.

According to a 2015 study titled “Incidence of Emergency Room Department Visits and Complications After Abortion,” chemical abortions are four times more dangerous than surgical abortions. 

The study used data from 2009 and 2010 to assess the abortion complication rate for California women who had abortions through Medicaid and those treated at the emergency room instead of the clinic.

Researchers found that the complication rate was 5.2% for women who took the abortion pills compared to 1.3% for women who had a first-trimester surgical abortion. The major complication rate for the abortion pills was 0.31%, in contrast to 0.16% for first-trimester surgical abortions.