With reproductive rights under threat, Women Help Women gives legal and medical advice to women who may be taking matters into their own hands 
 
 New website offers US women help to perform their own abortions 
 
 Fearful that Donald Trump’s presidency poses a once-in-a-generation threat to US reproductive rights, an international advocacy group this week is unveiling what is sure to be a controversial response: a web portal dedicated to helping US women terminate their own pregnancies with abortion-inducing drugs they have obtained outside of a medical setting. 
 
 ‘Please, I am out of options’: inside the murky world of DIY abortions Read more 
 
 The project, launched by Women Help Women, is a nod to the fact that many US women may already be taking matters into their own hands as abortion options in this country contract. 
 
 “Women in the US have been and are using the pills without good guidance,” said Susan Yanow, the US spokeswoman for the group, Women Help Women. “If a woman is anxious and has the pills in her hand, and doesn’t know what to do … we can help her understand what to do. We can help her understand what signs to look for, and what’s going on.” 
 
 Research suggests that there is a small but significant number of US women who attempt to induce their own abortions without any medical supervision. 
 
 Several studies have shown that many of these women, particularly those living along the US-Mexico border, are using misoprostol, a miscarriage-causing drug that can be legally purchased over the counter in many Central American pharmacies. In the US, it is illegal to administer the drug outside of certain medical clinics. 
 
 Rules for taking misoprostol are easy to find online. What Women Help Women has done differently is connect US women with counselors who can provide step-by-step instructions, and answer questions, in real time. 
 
 Their counselors are trained by medical professionals to walk women through the process of using misoprostol for a DIY abortion. Counselors will also strive to connect women with abortion funds if payment is the main obstacle for getting an abortion in a clinic. 
 
 But the main goal is to support the unknown numbers of women who are performing their abortions themselves. 
 
 Part of the inspiration, Yanow said, came from an article the Guardian US published in November. The story followed a young Texas woman who, unable to afford an abortion in the US, traveled to Mexico to purchase an abortion-inducing drug over the counter. 
 
 “There’s just so many questions,” the woman told the Guardian. “I would so much rather have a health professional help me in this and kind of guide me through it versus DIY.” 
 
 New Brunswick becomes first Canada province to offer free abortion pill Read more 
 
 Those words stuck in Yanow’s mind. And as she grappled for a way to respond to November’s election, it occurred to her that Women Help Women could tailor its services to the needs of women in the US. 
 
 The project will be titled Self-managed Abortion, Safe and Supported, or SASS, and use the website abortionpillinfo.org. 
 
 Women Help Women is already a longstanding provider of abortion pills and instructions in other countries. Every month, its staff members answer 5,000 emails from women around the globe seeking to end their own pregnancies. 
 
 The group will not provide abortion-inducing drugs to women in the US. And it has made other changes to its methods because of the United States’ uniquely hostile, anti-abortion atmosphere. 
 
 In the US, at least 18 women have been charged with a crime based on allegations that they attempted to induce their own abortion. A handful of states have made it explicitly illegal for anyone but certain medical professionals to administer abortion-inducing drugs. 
 
 Enterprising prosecutors have found other, creative ways to levy charges, through the use of laws against child endangerment, practicing medicine without a license, or drug possession. 
 
 Women Help Women counselors will inform clients of some of the legal risks that come with self-administering misoprostol, as well as some of the limitations. 
 
 But the legal implications of the project are far from certain. 
 
 “This area of the law is nothing if not complicated,” said Jill Adams, the chief strategist of the the Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, a project associated with Berkeley Law. Her group has shared legal information about self-induced abortion with Women Help Women, but stopped short of legally vetting the information that counselors will provide to US women. 
 
 In general, the act of looking for or giving out information about self-inducing an abortion is protected by law, Adams said. And she knows of no one who has been prosecuted merely for seeking information. 
 
 Still, it could compound the risk of prosecution. Purvi Patel, the first US woman to receive a significant prison sentence for inducing her own abortion, was convicted after prosecutors obtained emails that showed her purchasing an abortion-inducing drug from a Chinese pharmacy. 
 
 With those facts in mind, Women Help Women designed its portal to delete conversations between clients and counselors after seven days.Its servers are located abroad – out of easy reach for US prosecutors, the thinking goes – as are all 23 of its counselors. 
 
 The legal risks are thought to loom larger than the medical risks. 
 
 “In general, I would say there’s kind of a growing recognition that from a safety or a medical perspective, we have very few concerns about” women using abortion drugs on their own, said Daniel Grossman, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California–San Francisco who researches self-induced abortion. 
 
 “Especially if we’re talking about women using misoprostol on their own. It’s a very safe and effective medication,” he continued. “If women have information about how to use it, then women can safely use it on their own.” 
 
 When women go to an abortion clinic, they are typically given two drugs: mifepristone, a drug that blocks hormones necessary to sustain a pregnancy administered in person, and misoprostol, which is taken many hours later and causes the uterus to contract and expel its contents. The Food and Drug administration permits women to leave the clinic and take misoprostol at home. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Researchers believe that women who self-administer abortion drugs are most likely taking misoprostol by itself, because it is easy to obtain from foreign pharmacies. Misoprostol used without mifepristone is less likely to cause an abortion but still has a high success rate. 
 
 There are certain medical risks in self-administering an abortion drug without the involvement of medical professionals. An ultrasound is often necessary to confirm a pregnancy and assess how many weeks a woman has been pregnant. Misoprostol is less effective and requires a different drug regimen later in the first trimester. 
 
 Medical professionals will also inform women about how to recognize complications, like excessive bleeding, that could occur after they leave the clinic and require medical attention. And using the drug improperly – say, at a high dose in the second trimester – can lead to serious medical complications. 
 
 Grossman argued that a project like Women Help Women’s could minimize those risks. “I think that it’s worse to just remain silent while we know women are doing this,” he said. 
 
 But abortion rights opponents cite these safety concerns as reasons to oppose any project that makes abortion drugs available outside a clinical setting. 
 
 In response to a study, first reported by the Guardian, that tests the efficacy of sending women abortion drugs by mail, a spokeswoman for Americans United for Life said, “We have grave concerns about handing out dangerous, life-ending drugs without medical supervision because women face great risks for chemical abortions.” 
 
 Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, asked, “Who are they supposed to call if they have a problem?” 
 
 Yanow says that’s exactly the point of Women Help Women’s new portal. 
 
 “People are not being advised to use the pills,” she said. “They’re being advised if they’ve already decided to use the pills. What drives this project is the knowledge that women have been managing this on their own.” ||||| Share 
 
 In the U.S., abortion is legal in every state, and every state has at least one clinic that provides abortion care. However, in many states the law requires that abortion pills be given by licensed health care clinicians, and a woman may be arrested for using abortion pills that were not obtained through a clinician. 
 
 The contents of this webpage are for informational purposes only. The contents are not a substitute for advice from a medical provider. 
 
 For information about how to keep your research about abortion private, please read here. 
 
 Misoprostol alone, or in combination with mifepristone, is a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy in the first 12 weeks. It is approved by the World Health Organization as a safe abortion method when used by women themselves to 9 weeks and has been used successfully by millions of women* around the world, without a clinician. 
 
 Please read all of the following information carefully. This information is based on protocols developed by the World Health Organization. 
 
 For any questions use the secure contact form below - trained counselors will answer you within a few hours. 
 
 * Women Help Women recognizes that gender-specific terms do not encompass the rights and identities of all people that may seek to end a pregnancy. We believe everyone has the right to feel supported and respected during their abortion experience. 
 
 When should abortion pills not be used? 
 
 What is important to know before using the abortion pills? 
 
 How to use misoprostol for safe abortion before 12 weeks of pregnancy? 
 
 How to use mifepristone plus misoprostol for safe abortion? 
 
 What will happen after using mifepristone plus misoprostol, or misoprostol alone? 
 
 What are the symptoms of complications? 
 
 What if there is no bleeding after using the misoprostol? 
 
 What happens after the abortion? 
 
 How to check if the pills worked? 
 
 Where can I find a clinic or help paying for my abortion? 
 
 More Questions and Answers? 
 
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 Ever since Texas passed HB2 in 2013, the omnibus abortion law at the heart of a pivotal case the Supreme Court will review early next year, more than half of the state’s 41 abortion clinics have been forced to close. As these closures have mounted, advocates in the state have worried that the decline in abortion access could lead to a rise in the number of women trying to terminate pregnancies by themselves. 
 
 A new study quantifies some of those fears: At least 100,000 Texas women—and as many as 240,000—between the ages of 18 and 49 have attempted to self-induce abortions, according to a report released today by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP). The study also found that it is possible that the rate of women attempting to self-induce abortions is rising in Texas as a result of the state’s additional restrictions on abortion care. The report points to previous studies that have explored the correlation between a rise in abortion restrictions and the prevalence of self-induced abortions. A 2008 national study found that about 2 percent of women reported that they tried to terminate pregnancies on their own. In 2012, a year after Texas passed several new abortion restrictions, a study of Texas women seeking care at an abortion clinic found that about 7 percent reported attempting to end their pregnancies without medical assistance before seeking clinic care. 
 
 “This is the latest body of evidence demonstrating the negative implications of laws like HB2 that pretend to protect women but in reality place them, and particularly women of color and economically disadvantaged women, at significant risk,” said Dr. Daniel Grossman, one of the study’s co-authors and a professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the University of California-San Francisco, in a press call Tuesday morning. 
 
 Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an independent abortion provider in Texas and the lead plaintiff in the HB2 case currently before the Supreme Court, reiterated that Texas has seen a rise in self-induced abortions since abortion restrictions like HB2, and that terminating a pregnancy with DIY methods is not healthy for women. “Nobody should be denied safe and compassionate care based on her zip code,” said Hagstrom Miller. “But that’s exactly what’s been happening. 
 
 These findings come from a survey of nearly 800 women, ages 18 to 49, conducted by TxPEP over two months in 2014 and 2015. The women were asked if they knew or suspected that their best friend had ever self-induced an abortion, and if they’d ever done so themselves. Overall, 1.7 percent of respondents said they had tried to self-induce an abortion, while 4.1 percent of women said they knew or suspected their best friend had done so. Applying these proportions to the nearly 6 million women of reproductive age in Texas, the researchers concluded that an estimated 100,000 to 240,000 Texas women ages 18-49 have attempted to end a pregnancy alone. 
 
 The study identifies two populations where histories of self-induced abortion were most prevalent: Latina women living in a county that borders Mexico—a more rural area of the state that has seen several clinic closures—and women who reported difficulty gaining access to reproductive health care in the past. 
 
 The study also determined that the two broad categories of methods used by women to end their pregnancies were home remedies such as herbs, teas, vitamins, or medications—primarily misoprostol—obtained in Mexico without a prescription by women traveling there. 
 
 Typically, a medication abortion in the United States requires that two drugs—misoprostol and mifepristone—be taken about 24 hours apart. But most doctors say misoprostol alone can be an effective way to induce an abortion if the combined regimen is not available. Most of the women who reported obtaining misoprostol had a complete abortion after using the drug, but used different doses and methods of administration. Many reported intense symptoms throughout the abortion—intense cramping and bleeding, for instance—and some talked about being unsure whether these symptoms were normal or healthy. 
 
 Most women cited one or more of four reasons for choosing to self-induce: They lacked the money to travel and/or pay for the procedure; their local clinic had closed; a close friend or family member had recommended self-induction; or the women feared the stigma associated with going to an abortion clinic. 
 
 But Grossman pointed out that among these specific reasons, “a common layer was that poverty layered on one or more of these obstacles led women to self-induce.”
– A Dutch organization that advises women on reproductive rights has now launched a website to help US women terminate pregnancies on their own. The Guardian reports on the "Self-Managed Abortion: Safe and Supported" portal, or SASS, set up by Women Help Women. Through it, 23 trained counselors will answer questions and give advice if women have already decided to take the drug misoprostol. The medication, which, when taken alone or in combination with mifepristone, keeps a pregnancy from happening, is only legal in the US at medical facilities, though it can be purchased OTC in Central American nations. A Women Help Women rep says the idea for the site came about after a Guardian story documenting a Texas woman's trip to Mexico to get the drug, and all the questions she had once she got it. The site won't provide pills, and organizers say they won't even suggest women take them—they're just there to keep women safe if they've already decided to. "It's worse to just remain silent," says a UC San Francisco obstetrics professor who calls misoprostol a "very safe and effective" drug (though it's more effective taken with mifepristone, which isn't as easy to obtain). For women who do have complications and must seek medical care, the Washington Post notes they'll be advised that drug-induced and spontaneous abortions typically look the same, and that the drug isn't detectable via drug test. Abortion foes note the meds can be dangerous if not taken correctly or if taken late in the gestation period, and that this site could put women at risk by providing info on taking them. Women Help Women is being cautious in case of legal ramifications: Its servers are located outside the US, as are its two dozen or so staffers.