The top abortion pill supplier in the US received more than 5,000 requests for medication in the first 12 hours after Donald Trump was projected to win the 2024 presidential election.
Rebecca Gomperts, founder of the supplier Aid Access, told The Guardian the 5,000 requests over 12 hours even surpasses the orders they received in June 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to an abortion nationwide.
“We have an extremely streamlined process and we are capable of dealing with all the requests really fast,” Gomperts told The Guardian. “But it’s much more [than usual]. And I think the reason is people are now much more aware – people are aware of the possibility of the abortion pill and aware of the threat it will be taken off the market.”
Gomperts’s organization wasn’t alone.
The telehealth service Wisp saw a 300% uptick in emergency contraception orders, and the abortion pill site Plan C saw a more than 600% increase in traffic, The Guardian reports.
Abortion was on the ballot in ten states this Election Day. In seven of those states, voters chose to expand abortion rights or even enshrine them in their state constitutions.
But this doesn’t mean the fight is over. Abortion rights advocates are now warning that President-elect Trump’s incoming administration and an emboldened Republican-dominated Congress could upend these hard-fought, newly enshrined protections, The Independent previously reported.
Trump’s stance on a national abortion ban – which many Republican lawmakers have voiced their support for – isn’t entirely clear. Last month, Trump told Fox News a national abortion ban is “off the table” but moments later said, “we’ll see what happens.”
Trump also played a key role in ending nationwide abortion access. During his first term, Trump nominated the three justices who secured the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority and ensured the court could overturn Roe v Wade.
Even without an abortion ban, Republicans could be poised to criminalize delivering abortion pills by mail, Slate reports, which is how the majority of patients receive the medication.
