Donald Trump’s second term is looming large over women who have had their rights steadily stripped away since he first took office in 2016, and they are preparing accordingly.
Reproductive health care companies are reporting skyrocketing sales in contraception ranging from Plan B to abortion pills since Election Day. Women who have not sworn men off entirely are preparing for heightened health risks due to draconian abortion bans in red states—and possibly nationwide.
On the campaign trail, Trump said he’d protect women “whether the women like it or not,” whatever that means. Either way, it’s creepy. He called the states that enacted abortion bans a “beautiful thing” after appointing the conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. His election to a second term has emboldened violent misogynists including far-right podcaster Nick Fuentes, who posted, “Your body, my choice” and gleefully mocked women on social media.
According to reporting by CNN, women’s telehealth company Wisp saw a 1,000% surge in morning-after pill sales like Plan B emergency contraception. This led the company to have the largest revenue they’ve ever seen. Most purchases, according to Wisp, were of “value packs” with three or six-packs of Plan B.
“They're really stocking up to have on hand in the event that the landscape changes,” Wisp CEO Monica Cepak told Fierce Healthcare. “There’s no judgment. We’re providing the necessary healthcare to women.”
During that same period, Cepak said the company saw new patient sales rise 1,650%, with birth control sales doubling.
According to reporting by Fierce Healthcare, in the 60 hours after Tuesday’s election results, sexual health provider Winx said it sold seven times more doses of its morning-after pill compared to the same period the previous week—a 966% jump.
Aid Access is the No. 1 supplier of abortion pills by mail in the U.S. Founder Rebecca Gomperts told The Guardian that the company received more than 5,000 requests for abortion pills in 12 hours post-election—an even higher number than when Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Most recently, Trump said he would allow anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild” while heading public health institutions like the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health. The CDC oversees and collects data on maternal and infant mortality, chronic diseases among women, and teen pregnancy. The NIH is the government research body that funds studies of contraception, endometriosis, high-risk pregnancies, labor, and infertility, to name a few.
Telehealth companies like Aid Access and Wisp, which include virtual appointments with physicians, are cash-pay only with a variety of monthly subscription fees. They do not accept health insurance. This could create a possible barrier to access for some low-income women, especially if the U.S. economy trends downward as expected with Trump in office.
It’s uncertain how women’s health care and OB-GYNs will operate should a nationwide abortion ban pass into law. It’s also uncertain if conservative states will continue to wage a war on women’s health by limiting access to reproductive health care in the name of religion. But one thing is very clear: Women want to protect themselves from an administration that has shown it is hell-bent on harming them.
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Written by Morgan Stephens. Cross-posted from Daily Kos.
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