Telehealth appointment requests with a medication abortion provider doubled following the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that returned abortion regulation to the state level, a new study has found.
The study, published Oct. 20 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, discovered that between November 2021 and February 2023, the abortion pill provider Aid Access carried out more than 16,000 telehealth appointments across 18 states. In each of the studied states, prescribing abortion pills through telehealth was legal both before and after the Dobbs decision. Prior to the ruling, Aid Access performed 4,545 telehealth appointments, but after the decision, the organization performed 11,609.
The study also found that the average monthly rate for requesting telehealth appointments related to medication abortions rose across all surveyed counties after the Dobbs ruling, going from 2.4 to 4.5 requests per 100,000 women. Women who requested abortion medication via telehealth tended to be less than six weeks pregnant (59%) and have no children (59%).
While women who live far away from abortion facilities were the most likely to utilize telehealth services to seek abortion pills, women who live close to clinics also have begun to turn to telehealth rather than in-person medical visits. According to a news release from the University of Washington’s medical school, other studies have also shown telehealth services booming, even in pro-abortion states. One paper recently published in the journal Women’s Health Issues found that abortion requests made by telehealth increased by 74% post-Dobbs.
The paper also found that women are seeking medication abortions by telehealth because they are seeking privacy and comfort and have concerns about their state’s abortion regulations.