Information lacking on remote abortion-care options
Many don’t know remote options include FDA-approved medications and online conferencing with licensed clinicians, a newly published paper suggests.Media Contact: Vishva Nalamalapu - vnala@uw.edu
People who travel across state lines for abortion care are poorly informed about remote options for their care, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open.
Anna Fiastro, a research scientist in family medicine at UW Medicine and lead author of the study, said more information for people seeking abortion services would help them choose whether traveling or obtaining remote care is better for them.
In 2022, the United States Supreme Court returned abortion-regulating authority to individual states. Today, 20 states ban or restrict providing abortions. People in those states who seek an abortion still have options to obtain care.
They can travel to states where providing abortions is legal. Or they can confer with clinicians who practice in a state where providing abortion care is legal through a video conference or a chat and then receive medication by mail. Most people who use remote care options from restrictive settings face no legal issues. However, some states that restrict abortions are working to curtail mailing abortion medications to their states and, in a few cases, have legally challenged patients who have ended their pregnancies that way.
Fiastro’s team wanted to study what people in states that restrict providing abortions know about remote options, how they choose between care options, what information people who traveled for abortion care have about remote options and why they chose to travel.
They interviewed 37 people who traveled outside of their home states to a clinic in a state where providing abortion care is legal.
Most people they interviewed knew about remote-prescription options, but they didn’t know much about them. Many didn’t know that remote telehealth abortion services are provided by United States licensed clinicians prescribing FDA approved medications, or that legal issues resulting from using remote care are very rare.
“From early reviews, few people have been investigated for using remote abortion services relative to the number of people ordering medications. Making these relative risks clearer to people allows individuals to make informed decisions,” said Fiastro.
The findings highlighted where people have knowledge gaps and where communication about remote abortion-care needs to be improved.
“When people don’t have a clear understanding of what the remote option looks like, the in-person experience often feels more familiar and predictable,” Fiastro added.
It’s especially important to improve communication about remote options because they are generally more affordable, less time-consuming and can be more private than traveling to an out-of-state clinic, Fiastro said.
“It’s important that people know and trust the remote option so that they can use it if they prefer,” she said.
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