Social media platforms Facebook and Instagram reportedly removed posts recently offering abortions pills to women. This comes after the Supreme Court overturned landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade, which sends the issue of abortion back to the states.
The Associated Press reported that memes and other content explaining how women could obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Many were subsequently removed.
Almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began removing some of these posts, just as millions across the U.S. were searching for clarity around abortion access. General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.
By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.
The AP obtained a screenshot on Friday of one Instagram post from a woman who offered to purchase or forward abortion pills through the mail, minutes after the court ruled to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.
“DM me if you want to order abortion pills, but want them sent to my address instead of yours,” the post on Instagram read.
Instagram took it down within moments. Vice Media first reported on Monday that Meta, the parent of both Facebook and Instagram, was taking down posts about abortion pills.
On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.”
The post was removed within one minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods.”
In December, Townhall reported how pro-abortion organizations such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and Plan C, claimed that tech companies like Facebook were making it difficult for the public to access information about abortion.
Executives from pro-abortion nonprofit Plan C, which helps women access abortion pills online, told The Hill in December that Facebook and Instagram “routinely” remove their posts and reject their advertisements.
Martha Dimitratou, Plan C’s social media manager, explained to The Hill that their posts are removed for “not following the community guidelines” under a policy that bans promoting “the sale of use of unsafe supplements, as determined by Facebook in its sole discretion.” One of their removed ads, reviewed by The Hill, showed an illustration of a woman on her phone with a text stating “Your nearest abortion provider…is in your pocket.”
Last week, after the Supreme Court’s ruling, President Biden issued remarks from the White House where he stated that he will protect access to abortion pills.
“It doesn’t mean the [abortion] fight’s over,” the president said. “My administration will also protect a woman’s access to medications that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. Like contraception, which is essential for preventative health care. Mifepristone, which the FDA approved 20 years ago to safely end early pregnancies and is commonly used to treat miscarriages.”