“Most U.S. providers have taken the R.E.M.S. to mean that mifepristone cannot be mailed,” Ms. Wells said. “We disagree. We think providers have clear latitude to ‘dispense’ the drug from their offices and then ship it to patients, and we’re hearing from more and more of our colleagues who see it the same way.”
When they started Plan C in 2016, Ms. Wells and Ms. Coeytaux — who in the late 1990s were instrumental in making emergency contraception available over the counter — set out to raise awareness about self-managed abortion through a grass-roots approach. They held meetings in their homes, trained groups of millennial “ambassadors,” and put out a report card ranking the various vendors offering pills online.