The ruling created an opening for virtual clinics like Choix, Hey Jane\u00a0and Just the Pill to offer \u201cno touch\u201d services for people less than 10 weeks pregnant. Patients complete a medical history form online, consult with a clinician over video or\u00a0telephone, and if eligible, receive two medications from a mail-order pharmacy.<\/p>\n
An ongoing study one of us is leading\u00a0at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)\u00a0demonstrates that the care offered by virtual clinics is safe and effective. The California-based company, Choix, served approximately 140 patients over two months. Patients were overwhelmingly satisfied with the service. It allowed them to have an abortion with privacy and without having to take\u00a0time off work, find child care\u00a0or travel\u00a0long distances. One grateful patient called it a godsend to be able to go through the process while safe at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In front of the White House on March 09, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Shannon Finney\/Getty Images for The Center for Health and Gender Equity)<\/span><\/p>\n The same results bear out for Hey Jane, which provides services in Washington and New York and saw demand double week after week in the first month of operation. “I especially loved the fact that the medication came to my house via mail,” said Nicollette Roe, a Hey Jane patient. “I made a plan with my partner about doing it at night, after our daughters were asleep. I had no stress around how to do everything because Hey Jane made it so that the doctor was moments \u2026 away via the app or by calling.\u201d<\/p>\n At the moment, these virtual clinics cannot use mail-order pharmacies to\u00a0deliver medications to their patients. That’s because in January, the Supreme\u00a0Court reinstated the FDA\u00a0rule while litigation is ongoing.\u00a0<\/strong>But virtual clinics illustrate the resilience of\u00a0abortion care even in the face of a hostile\u00a0Supreme Court or state laws designed to gut abortion rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n Health care is health care: <\/strong>My patients shouldn’t have to fight this hard for an abortion. Will Biden get in the ring?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n After the Supreme Court\u2019s order, networks of advocates and providers figured out how to provide abortion outside of brick-and-mortar operations, regardless of a patient\u2019s residence. Start-ups have found innovative ways to deliver\u00a0medication abortion to patients, like\u00a0Just the Pill’s pop-up mobile sites.\u00a0And nonprofit organizations such as Aid Access and Plan C have helped people receive medications by mail regardless of the state in which they live.<\/p>\n Remote care is all the more\u00a0important given the number of states that make gaining access to abortion as difficult as possible\u00a0and the prospect that\u00a0the\u00a0Supreme Court will abandon the core holding of\u00a0Roe v. Wade. But even if Roe remains on the books, Americans in roughly half of the country live in states without meaningful access to abortion care. The expansion of medication\u00a0abortion will help navigate these \u201cabortion deserts,\u201d or regions where patients must travel over 100 miles to reach a clinic. Virtual care can overcome the barrier of distance (and its related costs) by reaching patients at their homes and across state borders.<\/p>\n Follow the facts: <\/strong>Science prevails in Supreme Court ruling on abortion law that provided no medical benefit<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n This month, in deciding whether to defend restrictions on medication abortion, the FDA\u00a0 will consider the public health evidence that supports extending virtual services. The UCSF study and others like it provide the proof that remote care is safe and effective\u00a0\u2014 without the financial, social, logistical\u00a0and interpersonal constraints of clinic-based services. Over the long run, the FDA should allow studies on telehealth for abortion to proceed, enabling a formal review of the safety of direct-to-patient dispensing without the interference of politics. More immediately, the FDA should suspend the unnecessary and scientifically unsupported regulation of medication abortion.<\/p>\n Telehealth may well be the future of more affordable and more accessible abortion care in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The Biden administration must act now to help realize that future. \u00a0<\/p>\nStop unscientific abortion regulation<\/h2>\n