Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. A research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at requests for these pills from people who weren’t pregnant and sought them through Aid Access, a European online telemedicine service that prescribes them for future and immediate use.
Aid Access received about 48,400 requests from across the U.S. for so-called “advance provision” from September 2021 through April 2023. Requests were highest right after news leaked in May 2022 that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade — but before the formal announcement that June, researchers found.
Nationally, the average number of daily requests shot up nearly tenfold, from about 25 in the eight months before the leak to 247 after the leak. In states where an abortion ban was inevitable, the average weekly request rate rose nearly ninefold.
You don’t fucking say.
Men can’t truly understand how terrifying it is to be pregnant and unable to stop it. Even healthy pregnancies often result in long-term damage (Google it, I get freaked out even thinking about it), which is something that I’m convinced is intentionally hidden from women so that they won’t decide not to have children because the effects can so often be horrible. The worst thing is that other women hide it and then when their friends finally experience it after them, they open up about it. Talk about just wanting others to suffer like you did.
Imagine having to go through all that for a child you wanted to abort. Imagine all of the stereotypes you’re familiar with about pregnancy such as your abdomen painfully swelling, losing bladder control, feeling movement inside of your belly, getting nauseous and vomiting, getting inconvenient cravings, screaming in pain through labor. Then imagine the other fairly common outcomes which are hidden, such as : the flesh around your anus splitting open; becoming incontinent; developing hemorrhoids; the muscles in your abdomen splitting apart down the center; postpartum depression; your feet swelling up so large that you can’t even wear shoes. It goes on and on and it’s hidden from you until you experience it.
Not to mention that this is all in a country where healthcare coverage can end when the insurance company feels like and they can say they “cover” something but only pay $10 towards a $700 bill until you meet the deductible, medications not included. For those that decide to have a child with insurance, appointments can cost hundreds per appointment. You can to buy new clothes constantly what you may never wear again. You have to sit on the phone for hours hoping you are not hung up on to talk to insurance figuring out why something wasn’t covered when you triple checked it was. You have to buy prenatal medication and also things for each of the symptoms, sometimes multiple things for each symptom.
Discomfort/pain/anxiety/depression/things you already didn’t have time for and now have less time for aside, it’s EXPENSIVE to even try and be sort of comfortable. Expensive in both time and also money.
I had an extremely drama free pregnancy and I’m still healing 6 weeks later. The hemorrhoids in particular fucking suck because it’s painful for hours afterwards every time I poop, even with taking stool softener. I have an extremely generous maternity leave policy and I work a desk job so I’m able to take plenty of time to fully recover. I can’t even imagine how a warehouse or retail worker is able to manage, and their leave policy probably isn’t nearly as generous either.
Okay but a bunch of old guys probably know what to do best right? Why don’t we just let the government lead the way? Maybe they can tell us what people are most worthy of being parents too. They got the best answers so far. Specially the supremes. Good thing we don’t actually vote for a president, an electoral college does…uh a college? Nah, it’s just a bunch of random people who are picked based on their vote…“hey I’m gonna pick Trump!..oh pick that guy over there! He’s gonna vote Trump!”
So, it’s like stocking up on guns and ammo, but for an actual real demonstrable reason by rational actors.
Wow you must live in utopia
I live in a Midwestern US city where people in the far suburbs stock up on ammo. I’m going fine and have been for 40 years. (1) Nobody’s coming for your guns in the US if you aren’t a felon. It’s not even possible. (2) The odds of you needing all those rounds in the event of a home invasion is straight up silly. In fact, worst case you show them how much you got and they come back with more muscle next time.
Not a surprise.
This makes me worried about shelf life. Medication expires, but it’s not like food where you can give it a whiff to assess if it’s still good. It’ll look, feel, and taste the same; it’ll just slowly start losing its potency. Someone who needs it might take it as instructed on the bottle, but only actually be receiving a quarter dose or something. I’d guess there’s threshold in which a dose isn’t strong enough to terminate the pregnancy, but is strong enough fuck up the physiology involved, for both the mother and fetus. So, she’ll still be in need of an abortion, but other health risks could pop up, and she may not know it until the fetus develops into some fucking nightmare fuel due to a partial medication dosage.
If any pharmacologists happen to read this, please weigh in. I’d guess the solution would be some kind of calculation like “if it’s ___ months past its expiration date, take ____ pills to match the potency of one non-expired pill” and if that’s the case, we need to get that info circulating asap.
I’m not aware of any research on plan B specifically; but most medicines retain there effectiveness for decades past their stated expiration date.
That’s definitely comforting - hopefully Plan B is among the 90%, but I still wouldn’t feel comfortable with leaving it at ‘probably’.
…or, y’know, we could stop passing laws that are designed to be as evil as fucking possible, and this whole conversation becomes moot. -_-
Plan B is contraception, not an abortion drug.
It’s for when the condom breaks, not for when you are already pregnant. It’s also legal in states where abortions are illegal (because it isn’t an abortion drug).
The drugs that are being stockpiled are probably Misoprostol and Mifepristone. (Edit- I read the article more thoroughly, they are specifically talking about these two drugs not plan B)
I think it’s awful that I need to preface this with “I oppose all laws, including those that make abortions illegal” but let that suffice
if a sperm meeting and egg and beginning cellular division is the beginning of a human life, and plan b prevents that zone from embedding in the uterine lining, then it is arguably whether plan b is an abortion. you have stated that it is not, but without defining an abortion, and I think it’s obvious, by most definitions of abortion, plan b is an abortion.
We are on the same side. That said:
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the FDA recognizes that plan b stops or delays ovulation, so it’s method of contraception is not what you describe: Link to FDA faq. This page specifically addresses the claim that plan B prevents implantation (the fda says it does not).
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the article is specifically about two drugs that are not plan B and are abortifacients.
oh cool
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My exact thought when reading this. I might not throw away a pack of ibuprofen if its over the shelf life, but with hormone based products this might be a whole different story.
It’s not just women. I keep doses of Plan B here as well for any long term romantic engagements.
We have a dose of Plan B here for our 13-year-old daughter. She’s much more interested in girls than boys and she’s not at all interested in sex, but horrific things can happen.
I’m glad Plan B has a four-year shelf life. I just hope we won’t be out of luck when she’s 17.
Just a heads up - plan b is less effective the larger the woman is! I took it within 10 hours at about 150 lbs and it did not work
Friend, plan B is not an abortion drug, and isn’t what the article is talking about. Plan B is contraception.
You may not be aware of this, or you might already know. It is something a lot of people confuse, so it’s important to be clear.
It’s going to be the abortion underground train. This reminds me of the history of how black people freed slaves in secret by sneaking them out of their slavery state.
Already been happening. It’s called the Aunties Network. And actually, one of the things they do is buy up doses of abortion drugs to send to people in places where it isn’t available.
Shit’s going to get bad by the end of the year…
