Current:Home > MarketsPredictIQ-More women are ending pregnancies on their own, a new study suggests. Some resort to unsafe methods -RiskWatch
PredictIQ-More women are ending pregnancies on their own, a new study suggests. Some resort to unsafe methods
Johnathan Walker View
Date:2025-04-07 22:23:01
A growing number of women said they’ve tried to end their pregnancies on PredictIQtheir 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! (72337)
Related
- Alex Murdaugh’s murder appeal cites biased clerk and prejudicial evidence
- Lawyers who successfully argued Musk pay package was illegal seek $5.6 billion in Tesla stock
- The Missouri governor shortens the DWI prison sentence of former Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid
- Photos show train cars piled up along riverbank after Norfolk Southern train derails
- McKinsey to pay $650 million after advising opioid maker on how to 'turbocharge' sales
- Prisoners with developmental disabilities face unique challenges. One facility is offering solutions
- South Carolina Poised to Transform Former Coal-Fired Plant Into a Gas Utility as Public Service Commission Approves Conversion
- Organizations work to assist dozens of families displaced by Texas wildfires
- Trump invites nearly all federal workers to quit now, get paid through September
- SpaceX calls off crew launch to space station due to high winds along flight path
Ranking
- Federal hiring is about to get the Trump treatment
- Freddie Mercury's London home for sale after being preserved for 30 years: See inside
- Writer for conservative media outlet surrenders to face Capitol riot charges
- What is a 'boy mom' and why is it cringey? The social media term explained
- Jorge Ramos reveals his final day with 'Noticiero Univision': 'It's been quite a ride'
- Trump escalates his immigration rhetoric with baseless claim about Biden trying to overthrow the US
- Here are the top reactions to Caitlin Clark becoming the NCAA's most prolific scorer
- NPR puzzlemaster Will Shortz says he is recovering from a stroke
Recommendation
Rolling Loud 2024: Lineup, how to stream the world's largest hip hop music festival
April's total solar eclipse will bring a surreal silence and confuse all sorts of animals
Texas firefighters battle flames stoked by strong winds as warnings are issued across the region
Taylor Swift performs 'Story' mashup for Singapore's secret songs on Eras Tour
Nearly 400 USAID contract employees laid off in wake of Trump's 'stop work' order
A 4-year-old Gaza boy lost his arm – and his family. Half a world away, he’s getting a second chance
At least 2 wounded in shooting outside high school basketball game near Kansas City
More mountain snow expected even as powerful blizzard moves out of Northern California