At-home abortion pilll “startups” are popping up to “fill some of the void” for abortion access in the United States, CNN reported Wednesday.
Reportedly, websites like Choix, Hey Jane, and Just the Pill launched recently in response to states like Texas and Oklahoma passing laws to restrict access to abortion and protect unborn lives. The companies offer “limited number of states abortion prescriptions via telemedicine and delivered by mail.”
“Thanks to the easing of regulations at the federal level, these startups say their services can cut travel time, in-office wait periods and costs,” the report stated.
A medication abortion consists of two pills – mifepristone and misoprostol. The first pill stops the pregnancy from growing and the second expels the pregnancy from the mother.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the medication abortion pills in 2000. The pills were restricted from mail delivery until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CNN noted.
This regulatory change opened the door to companies that hope to cater to abortion-seekers who either reside in states that allow telehealth abortion care or who travel from their access-restricted home states. While there is no residency or state ID requirements for abortion care, Choix requires patients to have a shipping address within one of the states it serves. Hey Jane requires patients to be within the accessible state for both consult and treatment.
Kiki Freedman, CEO of Hey Jane, told CNN that the company has seen a nine-fold increase in “new telehealth patients” compared to the same time one year ago and has “nearly doubled the clinical team size since September when SB8 went into effect in Texas.”
In May, Townhall reported how abortion pill providers were preparing for a surge of patients following the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
Late last year, GOP South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed an executive order banning telemedicine abortions in the state. In an interview with Fox News, she doubled down on her stance.
“Everybody knows that I’m pro-life and do not support any kind of abortions,” Noem said in the interview. “But, here what the Biden administration is doing is trying to put forward abortion on demand. And we’re going to stop them and make sure that that’s [telemedicine abortion] not available in our state.”