Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. A research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at requests for these pills from people who weren’t pregnant and sought them through Aid Access, a European online telemedicine service that prescribes them for future and immediate use.

Aid Access received about 48,400 requests from across the U.S. for so-called “advance provision” from September 2021 through April 2023. Requests were highest right after news leaked in May 2022 that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade — but before the formal announcement that June, researchers found.

Nationally, the average number of daily requests shot up nearly tenfold, from about 25 in the eight months before the leak to 247 after the leak. In states where an abortion ban was inevitable, the average weekly request rate rose nearly ninefold.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      We have a dose of Plan B here for our 13-year-old daughter. She’s much more interested in girls than boys and she’s not at all interested in sex, but horrific things can happen.

      I’m glad Plan B has a four-year shelf life. I just hope we won’t be out of luck when she’s 17.

    • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Just a heads up - plan b is less effective the larger the woman is! I took it within 10 hours at about 150 lbs and it did not work

    • Urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Friend, plan B is not an abortion drug, and isn’t what the article is talking about. Plan B is contraception.

      You may not be aware of this, or you might already know. It is something a lot of people confuse, so it’s important to be clear.