While any woman will tell you that birth control is a hassle when it comes to remembering to take your pill on time, for those of us not ready or interested in having a child, it’s irreplaceable.
While birth control has been around since the FDA approved the pill in 1960, the topic is a fraught one in today’s America, where many voices believe it should not be available or used at all.
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Project 2025, the much-discussed political initiative authored by The Heritage Foundation and designed for a second term of President Donald Trump, contains a detailed agenda on abortion, designed to prevent it to the greatest extent possible.
One thing the plan focuses on is eliminating the sales of mifepristone, a medication used to terminate early pregnancies.
The plan also aims to dismantle U.S. abortion access, restrict the use of federal funds for abortion care and coverage, and dismantle the abortion protections provided under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), forcing abortion doctors to choose between saving a patient’s life or being faced with criminal charges.
Related: How This Doctor Started Her Own Birth Control Delivery Business
In short, should Project 2025 graduate from roadmap to reality, American women in need of an abortion may find themselves in an even more difficult situation than the current one.
Since the 2022 rollback of Roe v. Wade, 11 states have made abortion illegal, including Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Tennessee.
Emergency contraception deserts, as they’re called, are popping up all over America, and misinformation about abortion care continues to worsen in the current political climate. But women’s health advocates are actively working on a plan that makes access to the morning-after pill easier for those who need it.
A new place to find the morning-after pill
As thousands of drugstore locations continue to shutter due to rising costs, increased competition and shrinking reimbursement rates, they’ve become an unreliable place to find a morning-after pill if you’re looking for one.
Cadence OTC, an Oakland-based company that makes an emergency contraception pill, has focused on getting its product in a new location to make it even more accessible: convenience stores.
To accomplish this, the company forged a partnership with Lil’ Drug Store Products, which is the U.S. supplier of health products to convenience stores. So far, 11,000 locations across 48 states carry the product, which can be purchased over the counter and does not require a prescription.
Related: Levi Strauss Calls Abortion Access a ‘Critical Business Issue.’ Here’s Why.
“Urgent health care products are a logical expansion space for C-stores, and the profit margins are generally higher than [for] food and soft drinks,” Cadence told UPI in an interview.Â
“Ninety percent of C-stores already carry condoms, so it makes sense to offer female contraceptives as well.”
Plan B, another morning-after pill that uses levonorgestrel to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex, can also be found at a variety of retailers, including Walmart, Target, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and CVS Pharmacy.
Rising confusion around the pill
Ever since the 2022 ruling of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that allowed states to enact local abortion bans, a rise in misinformation has left many women in need of abortion care confused and unsure of what to do.
There’s a growing confusion around the differences among levonorgestrel, mifepristone, and misoprostol, with many people believing that all three induce medical abortions. The morning-after pill uses levonorgestrel, which is a synthetic hormone that prevents the release of the egg that would normally lead to pregnancy.
Half of women between the ages of 18-49 either believe the morning-after pill is illegal in their state or are “unsure,” according to a 2023 poll from health policy research organization KFF.
