Report: More women have tried to end pregnancies on their own since Roe was overturned

The number of women who reported trying to end their pregnancy without medical assistance has increased since  the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, more women have tried to end their pregnancies on their own, according to a new study.

The study, recently published in the journal JAMA Network Open, surveyed approximately 7,000 reproductive-age women in the US before and after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022. The amount of women who reported trying to end their pregnancy by themselves increased from 2.4% in January 2022 to 3.3% by July 2023.

“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.

Study authors acknowledged that the increase is small. But the data suggests that it could number in the hundreds of thousands of women.

In both instances, researchers  asked participants whether they had ever taken or done something without medical assistance  to end a pregnancy. Those who said yes were asked follow-up questions about their experiences.

The women reported using a range of methods to end their pregnancies. Some took medications that they 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.

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 Associated Press contributed to this story.