What You Need to Know About Getting Abortion Pills via Telehealth Right Now
It’s only been a little over eight weeks since the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion-rights case Roe v. Wade, but people are already facing barriers to critical health care. Access to safe abortion has shifted dramatically in several parts of the country thanks to “trigger” bans that swiftly went into effect following the court’s June 24 ruling.
Banning or severely limiting abortion doesn’t actually reduce the number of people who have an abortion—it just forces them to seek out less safe options. In some states, the distance to the nearest abortion clinic is estimated to grow to hundreds of miles, per the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization devoted to sexual and reproductive rights. Wait times are only expected to become longer with fewer clinics serving more people seeking out-of-state care, which poses a big issue: When you need an abortion, timing is everything.
In this scenario, abortion pills can play an especially important role. The medication can be prescribed at a clinic or via telemedicine and taken anywhere, including at home. Until at least the 10th week of pregnancy, abortion pills are an extremely safe and effective abortion method.
But people who live in a state where abortion care is out of reach may search for their own solutions online, and some may seek out abortion pills sourced from outside the established medical system, such as pills obtained without a prescription and sent through the mail from international online pharmacies, according to Kirsten Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project. People who desperately need this care may decide to “self-source medication any way they can,” she tells SELF.
https://www.self.com/story/abortion-pills-telehealth
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