Distressed calls from women from various part of the world can be heard, if one just read through the various messages on mail order abortion websites.

One such pregnancy termination seeker from Texas, where abortion is legal but severely restricted made an order with an online service for abortive medication. Due to heavy restrictions in the state, however most services do not mail any abortifacients there; still the woman tried her luck. She had just lost her job due to downsizing in her company and only had a part time job since. Her rent rates had gone up and she had been borrowing money. This was her reality; therefore there was no question whether she could afford a baby but it was whether she could even buy abortion pills or afford a surgery.

She had an intuition that getting help for pregnancy termination, in a place where she lived would be illegal but, she was out of options. She went out to buy abortion pill online to induce her own abortion.

Back to pre- Roe v/s Wade days?
The above experience may feel like it belongs in the past and out of place for happening in 2016; however that is not the case. Pregnancy termination has a long painful history, where women used to go to back alley abortive services with no trained professionals in unsanitary conditions. Coat- hangers, soap solutions and poisonous teas where used as common solutions for unwanted pregnancies which put women’s well being at risk. Due to such reasons, the U.S Supreme Court was called to legalize abortion and thus Roe vs. Wade happened in 1973, in order to make self induced abortive procedures a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, a horde of anti-abortion advocates began to whittle those rights away. The Congress too began to prohibit access to poor women by denying abortive coverage in Medicaid. Although, elective abortion was covered under Obamacare, state restrictions allowed the sweeping ‘pro-life’ advocates to close thousands of clinics providing abortive care.

Self-induced abortions weren’t supposed to all but disappear after the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalized abortion all throughout the country. Just before the Roe vs. Wade, the late 1960’s and early 70’s, all abortive care was restricted to major cities and women who had means to travel there. Approximately 100,000 women had travelled to other states to get legal abortive care in New York. Just in a year, the number of women seeking illegal service or trying to self induce was up to 12 times of that.

Hostile abortive care climate
Due to hostile attitude towards abortive providers and restrictions on treatment, self – induced medical miscarriage are common. A report found that at least 2.2% of abortive patients had tried to induce a miscarriage at some time of their lives. While another research found that 4.1% of women in Texas had tried to induce miscarriage, or at least 1, 00,000 women had.

Do it yourself procedures on the rise
There is no concrete information regarding how many American women annually go through self induce abortion or try to, but since 2008 – 2011, a new wave of restrictions on women’s reproductive rights have made demand for abortifacients increase incredibly. This is evident by from the doubled number of online queries across the country on self-induced medical miscarriage as per Google analytic searches.

The Trump effect
The newly elected president’s policies and promise to overturn Roe vs. Wade decision is a crisis for reproductive rights. Many women’s groups have risen to make abortive medicines available for women at home. A recent research approved by the FDA, oversaw various participants where they bought Misoprostol online (Abortion Pills) and mail ordered the medication at home. They went through the procedure at home, in which 11 out of 12 (one participant didn’t take the pill) felt no complications from the pills.