Doctors say birth control, abortion pill requests have surged since election
Requests for long-term birth control and permanent sterilizations have soared across the U.S. since Donald Trump won the election, doctors told The Associated Press.
Companies that sell emergency contraception and abortion pills say they're seeing significant spikes in requests from people who are stockpiling the medications.
Telehealth company Wisp saw orders for abortion pills spike 600% between Election Day and the following day. Between Nov. 6 and 11, the company saw a 460% increase in sales of its emergency contraception and birth control products.
At Winx Health, which sells emergency contraception called Restart, company leaders saw a 966% increase in sales in the 60 hours following the election compared with the week before. Sales of "value packs" of Restart — four doses instead of one — were up more than 7,000% in the past week.
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"I saw this bump after the Trump election in 2016," Dr. Clayton Alfonso, an OB-GYN at Duke University in North Carolina, told The Associated Press.
FILE - Several methods of birth control: Plan B emergency contraceptive, non-hormonal and hormonal IUDs, and a hormonal implant pictured on the right, with the application device and simulated skin surface. (Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News
Alfonso also saw a spike in such requests after Roe vs. Wade was overturned in 2022, "but the patients seem more afraid this time," he said.
Alfonso said his patients want to replace still-effective IUDs and "restart" the 3-to-12-year clock on them before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025. He also said the women are particularly concerned about IUDs. Experts believe the devices work mostly by blocking fertilization, but also may make it harder for a fertilized egg to implant in the womb, which is why some abortion opponents have pushed for it to be banned.
Anti-abortion advocates are also pushing Trump for more restrictions on abortion pills, but Trump has sent mixed messages on the issue.
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He told a Pittsburgh television station in May that he was open to supporting regulations on contraception. But after backlash from the interview, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that he "has never and will never" advocate for restricting birth control and other contraceptives.
"Morning after pills" are legal in all states, but Winx co-founder Cynthia Plotch said many people seem confused about what emergency contraception is compared to abortion pills. In a 2023 poll by the health policy research organization KFF, a majority of responders said they know these two things aren't the same, but only 27% reported knowing emergency contraceptive pills cannot end a pregnancy.