Abortion Pills Are Available in All 50 States. But Who Makes That Happen?
Abortion Pills Are Available in All 50 States. But Who Makes That Happen?
Inside one volunteer network that's mailing pills to ban states—for free.
One of the biggest differences between our post-Roe reality and pre-Roe times is the existence of abortion pills. This is one reason why, since the Dobbs decision two years ago, the stories starting to emerge of deaths and near-deaths are coming from hospitals, where people—often those with wanted pregnancies—were denied the appropriate care in the face of pregnancy complications.
What we aren’t hearing, at least not yet, are stories of dangerous “back alley” abortions. Thankfully, those don’t have to exist anymore, because abortion pills are medically safe and effective whether you get them from a doctor or not—as long as you have the information you need to take them properly.
But buying abortion pills online tends to cost upwards of $100 (for medication that actually costs, at most, a few dollars). While there are many reputable telemedicine services, many people can’t afford them, and many of the more affordable services, which bill themselves as online pharmacies, are really just drop shippers who can be extremely unreliable. (Remember that Australian woman who thought she was going to fix U.S. abortion access and left over 100 people in the lurch?)
So, as an alternative, an entire network of community pill providers has popped up. These volunteer networks are run mostly by people who were already involved in the abortion access movement in some way. They ship pills to people in restrictive states for free. Though this is medically safe, it doesn’t come without risk—especially the risk of criminalization. And like everyone in the movement, they are facing a funding crunch following the major national cuts I reported on back in August.
To learn more, I interviewed a doula who volunteers with one of these networks. You can read the story here.