You Can Now Legally Have a Mail Order Abortion in 20 States
We argued a few years ago that medical abortion – the kind where you take pills early in your pregnancy to induce a miscarriage – is so safe that it should be legal to do it from the comfort of your home, perhaps through some kind of visit. an online doctor and a package of medicines that come in the mail. This is actually a reality in 20 states and Washington DC.
In the past, the FDA required that mifepristone, one of the essential drugs, be administered in a personal clinic, even if you may later have a miscarriage at home. This led to unreasonable demands for people to have an abortion, for example , they had to travel hundreds of miles – perhaps on two separate days, depending on state law – for pills.
In response to fears of a pandemic about having to go to a personal clinic, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists last year petitioned the federal government to suspend the personal visit rule. A series of lawsuits have been discussed continuously, but the issue has now been resolved: This week, the FDA responded to ACOG that “the overall results [from the studies they reviewed] do not appear to show an increase in serious safety concerns (eg, hemorrhage, ectopic pregnancy, or surgical intervention) arising from medical abortion as a result of changes in personal dispensing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. “
As a result, the FDA will “act on its own,” which means that while they technically have a rule in the books requiring a personal appointment, their official position is that no one will get in trouble for breaking it. In other words: mifepristone can be prescribed and mailed to you.
As a result , the company calling itself Abortion on Demand launched the first large-scale telemedicine service for abortion, according to Marie Claire . The website is not yet accepting orders, but explains that the process involves a video visit to a doctor followed by an overnight delivery of a package of medications. The service will then “register by SMS” and you will have access to their doctors to ask questions after leaving. Cost $ 239.
It is available in the states: Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island , Maine, and DC. The company says Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire will be “coming soon”.
Some states have stricter medical abortion laws than those applied by the FDA, so Abortion on Demand is currently only offered in these 20 states (plus the District of Columbia) and is limited to people over 18 and not older than 8 years. week of pregnancy. (If you do not meet these criteria, you can still have a telemedicine abortion with another health care provider; more information can be obtained from your local clinic, such as the Family Planning Center .)