Online medication abortion direct-to-patient fulfillment before and after the Dobbs v Jackson decision

Importance

Online pharmacies have emerged as stakeholders in abortion care since the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relaxed in-person dispensing requirements in 2020. The role of online pharmacies in dispensing abortion medications following the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on June 24, 2022, is understudied.

Objective

To describe medication abortion prescription fulfillment patterns for 1 online pharmacy 1 year before and after the Dobbs v Jackson decision, considering patient, prescriber, and state policy characteristics.

Design, setting, and participants

This cross-sectional study assesses deidentified medication abortion prescription fulfilment data from 1 online pharmacy. Prescribers sent prescription requests to the online pharmacy, which dispensed abortion medications to patients by mail. The study sample included prescription requests fulfilled by the online pharmacy between June 20, 2021, and June 24, 2023, for patients aged at least 18 years who received the combined medication abortion regimen. Data were analyzed from July 2023 to July 2024.

Exposures

The US Supreme Court Dobbs v Jackson decision on June 24, 2022.

Main outcomes and measures

Patient and prescriber characteristics are described, including patient age, state to which the prescription was sent, medications prescribed, and prescribing prescriber’s clinic care modality (in-person only, hybrid [in-person and virtual], and virtual only). States were grouped according to the Guttmacher Institute classification of policy support for abortion (most or very supportive, somewhat supportive, and somewhat restrictive). Fulfillment trends were disaggregated by prescriber modality and state policy environment; 2 states with similar telehealth but differing coverage policies (Illinois and Colorado) were compared.

Results

The dataset included 87 942 observations. Most prescriptions were sent to individuals younger than 30 years (57.1%), with a mean (SD) age of 28.7 (6.4) years. Throughout the study period, the greatest volume of prescription requests came from states with most or very supportive policies and from prescribers at virtual-only platforms. More prescriptions were sent in the year after Dobbs v Jackson (daily mean [SD], 88.5 [47.2] prescriptions in March 2022 vs 201.5 [97.5] prescriptions in March 2023) with fulfillment spikes following the Dobbs v Jackson leak on May 2, 2022, and decision on June 24, 2022. State policy contexts mirrored the overall trends, while prescriber modality trends were unique, with a big spike in fulfillment at 12 weeks after the Dobbs v Jackson decision for hybrid clinics compared with in-person-only clinics and telehealth-only platforms, which saw their largest spikes in mean daily prescription fulfillment the week immediately after Dobbs v Jackson. Illinois and Colorado had similar fulfillment trends, with spikes immediately following the Dobbs v Jackson decision and overall higher fulfillment after Dobbs v Jackson, with a daily mean (SD) of 10.5 (7.0) prescriptions in Illinois and 8.8 (5.7) prescriptions in Colorado in March 2022 versus 26.6 (13.6) prescriptions in Illinois and 16.7 (10.1) prescriptions in Colorado in March 2023.

Conclusions and relevance

These findings illustrate the increasingly critical role online pharmacies play in direct-to-patient abortion care provision in the US and the strong linkages between virtual-only prescribers and online pharmacies. These findings suggest that barriers to accessing online pharmacies for abortion care should be removed.