Current:Home > MarketsMore women are ending pregnancies on their own, a new study suggests. Some resort to unsafe methods -TrueNorth Capital Hub
More women are ending pregnancies on their own, a new study suggests. Some resort to unsafe methods
View
Date:2025-04-17 00:34:43
A growing number of women said they’ve tried to end their pregnancies on their own by doing things like taking herbs, drinking alcohol or even hitting themselves in the belly, a new study suggests.
Researchers surveyed reproductive-age women in the U.S. before and after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The proportion who reported trying to end pregnancies by themselves rose from 2.4% to 3.3%.
“A lot of people are taking things into their own hands,” said Dr. Grace Ferguson, a Pittsburgh OB-GYN and abortion provider who wasn’t involved in the research, which was published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Study authors acknowledged that the increase is small. But the data suggests that it could number in the hundreds of thousands of women.
Researchers surveyed about 7,000 women six months before the Supreme Court decision, and then another group of 7,100 a year after the decision. They asked whether participants had ever taken or done something on their own to end a pregnancy. Those who said yes were asked follow-up questions about their experiences.
“Our data show that making abortion more difficult to access is not going to mean that people want or need an abortion less frequently,” said Lauren Ralph, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the study’s authors.
Women gave various reasons for handling their own abortions, such as wanting an extra measure of privacy, being concerned about the cost of clinic procedures and preferring to try to end their pregnancies by themselves first.
They reported using a range of methods. Some took medications — including emergency contraception and the abortion pills misoprostol and mifepristone obtained outside the medical system and without a prescription. Others drank alcohol or used drugs. Some resorted to potentially harmful physical methods such as hitting themselves in the abdomen, lifting heavy things or inserting objects into their bodies.
Some respondents said they suffered complications like bleeding and pain and had to seek medical care afterward. Some said they later had an abortion at a clinic. Some said their pregnancies ended after their attempts or from a later miscarriage, while others said they wound up continuing their pregnancies when the method didn’t work.
Ralph pointed to some caveats and limits to the research. Respondents may be under-reporting their abortions, she said, because researchers are asking them about “a sensitive and potentially criminalized behavior.”
She also cautioned that some women may have understood the question differently after the Dobbs decision, such as believing that getting medication abortion through telehealth is outside the formal health care system when it’s not. But Ralph said she and her colleagues tested how people were interpreting the question before each survey was conducted.
The bottom line, Ferguson said, is that the study’s findings “confirm the statement we’ve been saying forever: If you make it hard to get (an abortion) in a formal setting, people will just do it informally.”
The research was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and a third foundation that was listed as anonymous.
___
AP polling editor Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
veryGood! (1695)
Related
- The FTC says 'gamified' online job scams by WhatsApp and text on the rise. What to know.
- Maine to extend electrical cost assistance to tens of thousands of low-income residents
- Searchers find body believed to be that of a woman swept into ocean from popular Washington beach
- Deion Sanders Q&A covers sacks, luxury cars, future career plans: 'Just let me ride, man'
- What do we know about the mysterious drones reported flying over New Jersey?
- Charges dropped against officer in fatal shooting of Eddie Irizarry: Report
- Martin Scorsese decries film franchises as 'manufactured content,' says it 'isn't really cinema'
- New California law bars schoolbook bans based on racial and LGBTQ topics
- Dick Vitale announces he is cancer free: 'Santa Claus came early'
- Police chief in Massachusetts charged with insider trading will resign
Ranking
- The FTC says 'gamified' online job scams by WhatsApp and text on the rise. What to know.
- Absentee ballots are late in 1 Mississippi county after a candidate is replaced because of illness
- Canada House speaker apologizes for honoring man who fought for Nazis during Zelenskyy visit
- Tiger Woods Caddies for 14-Year-Son Charlie at Golf Tournament
- What to watch: O Jolie night
- Third person arrested in connection with toddler's suspected overdose death at New York City day care
- Can't buy me love? Think again. New Tinder $500-a-month plan offers heightened exclusivity
- 'The Voice': Reba McEntire picks up 4-chair singer Jordan Rainer after cover of her song 'Fancy'
Recommendation
Will the 'Yellowstone' finale be the last episode? What we know about Season 6, spinoffs
Canadian fashion mogul lured women and girls to bedroom suite at his Toronto HQ, prosecution alleges
Third person arrested in connection with toddler's suspected overdose death at New York City day care
Olena Zelenska, Ukraine's first lady, highlights the horrors of war and the hard work of healing
Small twin
26-year-old tech CEO found dead in apartment from blunt-force trauma: Police
Hiker falls to death at waterfall overlook
When did *NSYNC break up? What to know before the group gets the band back together.