The session would be an explainer on abortion pills in the US: a decades-old medical technology that carries huge potential to disrupt the political barriers to early abortion access. For decades, reproductive justice advocates in countries where abortion is banned have shared information and design accompaniment models for this safe and effective, largely self-managed option. Today, the transformative model has reached the US, with a myriad of access routes to abortion pills by mail in every state: even states with bans. Learn about the changes that took place during the pandemic as telehealth models and pill sources proliferated under FDA changes and a growing need for at-home, affordable care. Hear about the current pill landscape of provider “shield laws” and cross-border telehealth, community networks, and the ecosystem of free confidential support resources across the US. Understand how when people share this information it becomes a new kind of community care and overrides strategies by courts and politicians to curtail access.
Plan C is an information resource and a public health campaign for access to pills by mail in the US. Since 2015, Plan C has helped to lead the way in normalizing self-directed abortion in the US: actively increasing awareness of this safe and effective method and catalyzing new routes of direct access to pills, by mail and with free and confidential support, from any state. In the past year the Plan C Guide to Pills (plancpills.org) had 2M visitors, press and social media campaigns reached upwards of 20B people worldwide, and Plan C cofounders were named in FastCo’s Most Creative People in Business. Plan C works under a simple vision: of a near future where the ability to end an early pregnancy is directly in the hands of anyone who seeks it. This reality is closer than ever due to the transformative model of pills by mail and safe self-directed care: but because of the stigma around abortion and the chaos and confusion of bans in the news, this reality is not one that many people truly understand.
