Grisly DIY abortions rose 40% after Roe was overturned - including using alcohol and punching one's stomach

DIY abortions surged after Roe V Wade was overturned, a study suggests. 

The researchers found that about 2.1 percent of all abortions in the US in 2021 were done without medical supervision.

Results showed the figure rose to 3.4 percent in 2023, a 40 percent jump, when abortion protections were removed from the federal level.

Plan B emergency contraception - which prevents pregnancy but cannot be used to terminate it - herbs such as mugwort, getting hit in the stomach, and drinking alcohol were cited as the most common methods. 

The team cautioned, however, that while the rise is significant, self-managed abortions are still rare, and the overall number remains low.  

The findings come as over a dozen states have restricted abortions or even banned them altogether following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022. 

The team wrote: 'These findings suggest an increased prevalence of self-managed abortion in the US; self-manage abortion should continue to be monitored carefully as barriers to facility-based care broaden.' 

An important caveat the team noted is that when they filtered out the women who performed these abortions without a confirmed pregnancy test, the differences between 2021 and 2023 were not significant. 

The study was published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. 

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco surveyed over 14,000 women at different points between December 2021 and July 2023, asking if they had ever performed a 'self-managed abortion,' or one without medical help.

The women were asked two questions. The first was whether or not they 'ever taken or done something on [their] own, without medical assistance, to try to end a pregnancy.' 

If they answered 'no' or skipped the question, they were presented with a list of self-abortion methods and asked to select any they had ever used 'to try to end a pregnancy on [their] own, without medical assistance.'

If the women said 'yes' to either question, they were asked how many times they performed their own abortions, how old they were, if they took a pregnancy test, why they suspected they were pregnant, where they lived, if they method worked, if there were complications, and if they sought medical help after. 

The team also asked why the women performed their own abortions.  

Emergency contraception was the most popular method (30 percent), followed by herbs (26 percent), hitting oneself in the stomach (21.6 percent), and alcohol or other substances (18.6 percent).  

Certain herbs like pennyroyal, mugwort, and high doses of vitamin C have been shown to induce an abortion, but they have also been linked to liver damage.

Additionally, Dr Ryan Marino, medical director of toxicology and addiction at the University Hospitals in Cleveland, told NBC News that pennyroyal is especially dangerous.

'Even in cases where people don’t get symptomatic, or don’t end up hospitalized, it’s associated with long-term cancer risk,' he said. 'It’s a known human carcinogen, and every time those molecules are in your body, they’re doing something bad there.' 

Meanwhile, the amount of women using abortion pill mifepristone increased by 40 percent between 2021 and 2023, which could have been due to it become widely available online and in pharmacies.

This method involves two drugs, taken over a day or two. The first, mifepristone, blocks the pregnancy-sustaining hormone progesterone. The second, misoprostol, induces uterine contractions. 

In March, mifepristone hit the shelves of pharmacies like CVS and Walgreen's in five US states: New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, and Illinois.

The proportion of self-managed abortions was highest among black women - 5.1 percent in 2023 - and lowest in white women - 2.7 percent. 

The average age of a woman's first DIY abortion was about 21 in 2021 and 2023. One in five women reported performing more than one self-managed abortion. '

The findings are consistent with other recent research, including a March report from reproductive health firm Guttmacher Institute, which showed that abortions have reached their highest level since 2014. 

There were several limitations to the study. For example, several women could have underreported their abortions out of fear of repercussions, as the procedure is outlawed in several states. 

Additionally, self-managed abortions are rare, so there was a small sample size.