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Demand for abortion pills rises ahead of Trump’s return to the White House
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Demand for abortion pills rises ahead of Trump’s return to the White House

With just over two months to go Donald Trump comes back to at the White House, interest in abortion drugs has skyrocketed in the US, according to organizations that prescribe and provide abortion pills, as women brace for uncertainty over abortion access during Trump’s second term.

The Washington Post reported that Help accessone of the largest providers of mail-order abortion pills in the US, said it received 10,000 requests the day after Trump’s win, as opposed to 600 requests on a typical day.

Wisp, a reproductive telehealth organization, saw a 300% increase in requests for emergency contraception, and Plan C, a website providing information on how to access abortion pills, saw a 625% increase in site visitors their The Guardian reported.

In recent years, the demand for abortion and emergency contraception drugs has increased in correlation with major political events. After Trump was first elected in 2016, there was an increase in the pursuit of women long-term birth control options such as IUDs. Requests for contraceptives, emergency contraception and abortion pills also grew up in 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The the landscape of reproductive rights likely to undergo yet another dramatic change in Trump’s second term. The president-elect has wrestled with whether to support a national abortion ban, but most recently said he would not sign such a law as president. JD Vance, vice president-elect, did the same has in the past supported a federal law restricting abortion but has since adopted Trump’s position of advocating for states to decide.

“Because of those inconsistencies, policy experts said, there is no clear roadmap for the future of abortion in a second Trump administration,” NBC News reported.

Abortion rights were widely seen as a major issue in this year’s election. Democrats have made abortion access central to their presentation, and many anti-abortion Republicans — including Trump, who once boasted of his role in overturning Roe — have remained silent on the issue.

In 10 states where abortion rights were on the ballot, a most of the measures adopted.

In his second term, Trump may try to strike a balance between widespread public support for access to abortion and the internal one the pressure he is likely to face from anti-abortion advocates in his party. The experts have raised concerns about ways an administration with staff loyal to Trump could further erode reproductive health policies without taking on abortion more directly.