Abortion by mail is on the rise, even in states like Washington where it remains legal

In Washington and 17 other states where abortion is still legal, telehealth orders for abortion medication have doubled since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Anna Fiastro, a researcher at the UW School of Medicine, studied the orders for abortion medication received by Aid Access, an organization that mails mifepristone and misoprostol, the two drugs used together for most medication abortions, worldwide.

Fiastro said the increase might be in part because press coverage meant more people learned about the telehealth option.

“Telehealth is on the rise,” she said. “About one in four of all abortions in the United States are now completed by telehealth, and I think that will continue to grow.”

The data Fiastro studied came from 18 states where abortion is still legal, but her study notes that it’s possible that some of the orders came from women who live in a state where abortion is restricted and traveled to pick up the pills.

Aid Access was started in 2018 by Rebecca Gomperts, the Dutch physician who also started Women on Waves. Women on Waves is an organization that sends ships to countries where abortion is illegal or highly restricted, and gives abortion pills to women 20 miles offshore, in international waters.

Fiastro found that the people most likely to order abortion pills from Aid Access were those who’d had a previous abortion and those who live more than 100 miles from the nearest clinic-based option — though she added that some people prefer telehealth even if they live down the street from a clinic.

She said the patients were also generally very early in their pregnancies.

“The vast majority are only two weeks after a missed period,” Fiastro said. “They just want the pills in their hands so they can take care of it and move forward with their lives as quickly as possible.”

This article was originally published by KUOW.