Searches for Birth Control, Abortion Pills Are Spiking. Here’s What You Need to Know.
With Trump’s election, the future of access to these basic reproductive health care staples is pretty uncertain.
Photo: Getty Images/Screenshot AbortionIn DepthSexual Health
On the campaign trail, faced with the deep popularity of rights to abortion and contraception, Donald Trump repeatedly flip-flopped and gave purposefully, deceptively ambiguous answers about both. He is, of course, a serial liar. Now that he’s been elected president, we know our reproductive rights are in jeopardy because we can look to his heinous record as well as the detailed plan (AKA Project 2025) that his anti-abortion extremist advisers and allies have outlined for his second term.
These plans include directing the FDA to revoke approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, which is highly safe, in addition to having his Justice Department enforce the Comstock Act of 1873 in order to prohibit the mailing of abortion pills. (Over 60% of abortions in the U.S. are medication abortions.) As president, Trump enacted policies to limit insurance coverage of contraceptives, and in May, suggested he’d restrict birth control; over the last year, on the state and federal levels, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly blocked legislation to protect a right to birth control.
So, given that context, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that online searches about accessing birth control and abortion pills have spiked in the last few days. The Birth Injury Lawyers Group reports that online searches for contraception rose by 254% within hours of the election being called; searches for IUDs specifically rose by 174%, as did searches for “Planned Parenthood.” Winx Health reports selling seven times as many units of its emergency contraception on Wednesday compared with ordinary days. And, speaking to Jezebel on Friday, Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C Pills, which provides information on how people can buy abortion pills online, said the campaign’s website typically sees 400 to 500 visits to its webpage per day, but on Wednesday, it received 82,000 visits, and about 57,000 on Thursday.
Plan C Pills’ website offers comprehensive information on how to order medication abortion online in all 50 states and connects users to trusted vendors to purchase the pills for as low as $25. Following the election, the campaign is trying to spread the word far and wide that you can—and absolutely should—order and stock up on medication abortion before you’re pregnant. This is called advance provision. Most pills can be kept up to two years after you receive them, but check the expiration date on the packaging.
“With the Trump administration comes a lot of uncertainty about what access will look like. While he flip-flopped a lot with his words, Project 2025 is very clear about wanting to restrict access to abortion pills by mail and more generally,” Wells said. Project 2025 was written by the far-right Heritage Foundation, as well as former Trump administration officials and advisers. Wells points to how the organization boasted in 2018 that then-President Trump had implemented two-thirds of the agenda they wrote for him at the time, within two years of his presidency. “So, we fully anticipate that much of what’s in [Project 2025] will be implemented, and we advise people to be prepared.” That means ordering abortion pills in advance to keep in stock, so “if your period is late, there’s something you can do immediately that doesn’t require travel, or making an appointment, or anything.”
View this post on Instagram
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
