‘‘The Story of Plan C, an organization that helps end an early pregnancy.
But while self-managed abortion in early pregnancy is medically very safe, is it legally safe?
“Only a handful of states make it a crime to have a self-induced abortion,” Lynn Paltrow of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women told Ms. “In most states, it’s not a crime to take actions that end one’s own pregnancy.”
Paltrow continued: “That being said, even in the overwhelming majority of states where it is not a crime to self-induce an abortion, there are all sorts of laws that that could in theory be applied to people who obtain medications outside of approved medical settings.”
The states that have explicit criminal prohibitions of self-managed abortions are Arizona, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Delaware and Nevada. New York repealed their criminal prohibition on self-managed abortion in 2019.
And while thirty-eight states have feticide laws that equate pregnancy termination with murder, most explicitly exclude pregnant women from criminal penalties. “
