'Tip of the iceberg': US self-managed abortions soar post-Roe, study shows

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/self-managed-abortions-avoid-bans

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https://archive.li/9bsD0

In the six months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, roughly 26,000 more Americans used pills to induce their own at-home abortions than would have done so if Roe had not fallen, according to a new study.

Published on Monday in Jama, one of the leading peer-reviewed medical journals in the United States, the study comes ahead of a key Tuesday hearing at the US supreme court at which the justices will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine the future of a major abortion pill, mifepristone.

Pills are used in 63% of all abortions within the US healthcare system, and the study suggests they are being used by even more people than previously known in order to evade abortion restrictions that now blanket much of the US.

Analyzing data from abortion pill suppliers who operate outside of the US healthcare system, the study provides a rare window into the growing practice known as “self-managed abortion”. Although definitions of self-managed abortion can vary, the practice generally refers to abortions that take place outside the formal healthcare system, without the aid of a US-based clinician.

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