Abortion advocacy group Plan C informs people how to get abortion pills in every state

Since its founding in 2014, the Plan C network has been determined to make sure that the comprehensive information on its website continues to help those seeking abortion medication — particularly in states where abortion care has been restricted or banned.

Plan C offers current and updated information about how to access at-home abortion medication. It lists all of the options available, depending on where a person lives: telehealth services, local community support networks offering free or generic pills, and a list of websites that sell the pills. The site additionally lists the costs and the number of days it takes for at-home delivery.

Abortion is currently fully banned in 15 states. Plan C’s website advises people how to get abortion medication in the mail, including in states where it is restricted. The pills are often sent from outside of the U.S., including from India, and are generic versions of the FDA-approved medications mifepristone and misoprostol.

There are potential legal risks to getting abortion pills in states where abortion is banned; Plan C provides resources for navigating those risks.

“Our number one tool is the state-by-state guide to pills,” Amy Merrill, the digital director and a co-founder of Plan C, tells the American Independent Foundation. “We feel like if everything else went away, all of the creative campaigns that we do, all the partnerships, all the things that we’re catalyzing and encouraging into action around the country if it all went away, the guide would be the thing that’s left as our essential tool that we offer the public.”

Merrill says that although some news outlets have called Plan C underground or secretive, “Our whole approach from the beginning has been to bring this out into the light, because that’s the problem with abortion. It’s been shamed, it’s been kept secret. No one talks about their abortions. That’s what led to this stuff.”

“We have a very intentional public approach to sharing this information because we don’t believe, and our lawyers keep telling us that there’s nothing wrong with sharing information,” she adds.

The work of Plan C has been documented by award-winning filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos, who over the last four years shot a film that chronicles the Plan C team from the early days of the pandemic to the present day. “Plan C” premiered in March at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

The film follows renowned public health specialist and co-founder of Plan C Francine Coeytaux and other activists in their fight to expand access and get abortion medications to abortion-seekers.

“I started doing my research and I learned about the work of Plan C, and I met the people, in particular Francine, who is an amazing disrupter person who just had a vision to promote and share information about online access and delivery to your door,” Tragos tells the American Independent Foundation:

For me, the film is obviously, in part, just about knowledge-sharing and getting the word out about access and that there are these incredible people doing this work to make that possible. But I think also just as a story, it’s also about what’s possible when people come together and don’t wait for lawmakers to give you permission to exercise what should be a human right.

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, access to abortion care was severely limited. States that were already unfriendly to abortion called the procedure nonessential and shut down medical centers and clinics.

“So what we did, which you’ll see when you see the documentary, is that we put a call out to medical providers because we also saw the FDA shifting and reconsidering its policies around mailed pills,” Merrill says.

In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration lifted restrictions on sending abortion pills by mail, allowing patients to order them online instead of having to obtain them from a health care provider in person.

In June 2023, the New York State Assembly approved a measure that protects physicians who prescribe abortion medication via telehealth.

Colorado, Washington, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York have passed shield laws protecting providers who prescribe abortion medication to those living in states that restrict abortion, as well as those traveling out of such states to obtain abortion care.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, and we do know how harmful any kind of attempt at criminalization is over people’s reproductive health outcomes,” Merrill says. “We know that this has an outsized impact on marginalized communities and that it is a larger conversation about justice and equity, it’s a larger conversation about body autonomy. And so I think the name of the game is staying clear with what we want and what’s still possible and making sure that everyone knows all of the resources that exist.”

July 12, 2023: This article has been updated to replace a reference to the drug Plan B, which is not an abortion medication, and to correct the names of the states that currently have shield laws.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.