National support for expanded access to medication abortion rose since Dobbs
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Key takeaways:
- More women expressed support for expanded access to medication abortion after the Dobbs decision.
- Support was higher among women living in abortion-restrictive states.
National support for expanded medication abortion access, including advance provision and over-the-counter availability, rose since the Dobbs decision, particularly among women residing in abortion-restrictive states, survey data show.
“As access to abortion continues to shift across the nation and policy changes are expected with the incoming Trump administration, new research from the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health Program shows growing national support for obtaining abortion pills in advance and OTC since the fall of Roe v. Wade,” M. Antonia Biggs, PhD, acting director of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health Program and professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and senior researcher at the UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, told Healio. “Alternative models of abortion care like advance provision and OTC access have the potential to offer a promising approach to abortion care, particularly for people living in abortion-restricted states.”
Biggs and colleagues administered two nationally representative cross-sectional online surveys to reproductive-age women before Dobbs (December 2021 to January 2022) and after Dobbs (June to July 2023). Researchers evaluated changes in support for and personal interest in advance provision and OTC access to medication abortion before and after Dobbs.
The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Overall, 6,982 women completed the survey before Dobbs and 3,561 women completed the survey after Dobbs. About one-third of respondents were aged 30 to 39 years.
National support for advance provision (48.9% vs. 55.1%; P < .001) and OTC access to medication abortion (49.4% vs. 55.2%; P < .001) increased from before to after Dobbs. Researchers also observed an increase in personal interest in advance provision (23.6% vs. 26.4%; P = .02) and OTC access (36% vs. 42.5%; P < .001) from before to after Dobbs.
Researchers observed larger increases in personal interest in advance provision (5.3 vs. 1.4 percentage points) and OTC access (9.4 vs. 5.4 percentage points) among those living in states with vs. without abortion bans.
“Future research should further examine the safety, acceptability, appropriateness, adoption and feasibility of implementing the advance provision and OTC models of care for medication abortion,” Biggs told Healio. “Given the high level of interest and support for these alternative models of abortion care, policymakers and regulators should support and facilitate the research needed for the approval of an OTC product, as well as prioritize policies that will ensure that both advance provision and OTC products are covered by insurance so that these approaches can become broadly available to the general public.”
For more information:
M. Antonia Biggs, PhD, can be reached at antonia.biggs@ucsf.edu; X (Twitter): @BiggsAntonia. Instagram: @UCSF; Bluesky: @ucsf.bixby.bsky.social.