Women & trans people are stockpiling abortion pills & hormones in the wake of Trump’s victory
One abortion pill finder site saw a 625% increase in traffic after the election.
By Greg Owen
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare providers are seeing triple-digit increases in orders and inquiries following Donald Trump’s election to a second term.
“Clearly, people are trying to plan for the reproductive apocalypse that we anticipate will be happening under a Trump presidency,” Elisa Wells, co-founder of abortion pill finder site Plan C told The Guardian. The site saw a 625% increase in traffic following the election results.
Aid Access ships out 9,000 abortion pills a month as the top by-mail supplier in the United States. As news of Trump’s victory spread, the group received 5,000 requests in less than 12 hours.
“I can see all the new requests ticking in as we’re talking,” Rebecca Gomperts, founder of the group, told The Guardian in a phone call from Paris, where they group is based. “We’ve never seen this before.”
While Trump claims he doesn’t support a national abortion ban, his laissez-faire “leave it to the states” approach shifts responsibility for curtailing reproductive freedoms to his MAGA supporters and red state officials. Throttling access to abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in the U.S., is one way they’ll do it.
One tactic could be enforcing the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law named for an anti-vice crusader that criminalizes the transport of pornography, contraceptives and abortifacients through the mail. The “zombie” law could be resurrected in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision.
“Women are smart,” said Cynthia Plotch, co-founder of Winx, another telehealth site. “We see what is coming, and we are protecting ourselves.”
Online women’s health provider Wisp said it had tripled its usual daily sales of emergency contraception by noon on Wednesday; they saw the same order increases for bulk Plan B packs. New patient requests soared as well.
Telehealth site Hey Jane’s requests for birth control doubled, and Winx sold six times their usual orders for Plan B by Wednesday afternoon.
Trans people face the same threat in maintaining their healthcare in an era more overtly hostile to their existence after Trump and MAGA allies made the demonization of trans people central to their campaigns this year. Trump has vowed to ban “biological men” from women’s sports, and officials in state after state are going after anyone associated with gender-affirming care for trans youth.
Telehealth site QueerDoc has seen a big influx of inquiries from trans patients concerned about their access to estrogen, testosterone and hormone-blocking drugs.
Dr. Crystal Beal, who runs the site, said the service has been advising patients to stock up on as much of their hormone treatment as state law and their insurance coverage allowed.
She said QueerDoc sent a message to patients on Wednesday morning reminding them that in the face of uncertainty, “trans people have always been here, and we will continue to persist.”