In the late hours of Election Night, Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential race. 60 hours later, women’s clinics began to report major increases in patients requesting access to contraceptives as people scrambled for fear of restrictions on reproductive rights.
There are over a dozen types of birth control to choose from, all with different side effects and procedures to be considered carefully. Doctors will sometimes require consultations to thoroughly explore the different options.
Though Trump has called claims that he would support restricting birth control or other contraceptives a “Democrat fabricated lie,” Alabamians affected by this change feel pressured to expedite the process of getting contraception.
“After the election results came out, it kind of felt like there was a time limit of some sort. It added pressure to get birth control, and it accelerated my timeline a little bit,” said Aimee Choup, a studio art major at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
Choup originally tried to schedule an appointment for birth control months ago but has been forced to wait due to high demand at the clinics in Birmingham.
“They didn’t have any openings in obstetrics and gynecology offices until June and July. It caught me off guard. I’ve never struggled so much to get an appointment as I did trying to see if I could find anyone in Birmingham,” Choup said.
She eventually decided to go to a clinic in her hometown of Madison, Alabama, but was turned away over winter break.
Choup said the clinic told her she needed to wait at least a week for an appointment so that she could make sure she was “100%” on her decision.
“But part of me was like, ‘If I already made the appointment and drove out here, I’m pretty sure that I’m okay with the decision,’” Choup said.
Choup is still scheduled to receive the birth control implant Nexplanon over spring break, though she finds the waiting period stressful and unnecessary.
This high demand isn’t centralized to Birmingham. Clinics big and small are clambering to keep up. The sexual health company Winx Health reported that sales for its morning-after pill increased 966% only 60 hours after election results were announced, and the West Alabama Women’s Center has been receiving calls nonstop.
“The day after the election, my personal cell phone did not stop ringing. They’re nervous, mostly about just the thought of not being able to choose,” said Crystina Hughes, a nurse and birth doula at the WAWC in Tuscaloosa, where she serves as the community outreach director.
Days after the election, Hughes posted on Facebook that the WAWC is giving out emergency contraception to anyone who wants it, with no doctor’s appointment required.
Hughes said that she came to the decision to reach out to her local community due to the amount of fear she was witnessing and she wanted to reassure people.
“We were getting a lot of calls about Plan B, emergency contraception and just contraception in general. I decided to just post to let people know that we did still have Plan B,” Hughes said.
Maggie Jutze is a graduate student in public administration and president of Generation Action, a reproductive rights club affiliated with Planned Parenthood, and she has been receiving questions too since the election.
“I know that a lot of lawmakers are talking about contraceptives and restricting access to them. There’s a lot of conversation happening about what we’re going to be able to do and how we can continue to provide resources for students. People are stocking up on things,” Jutze said.
Choup and her roommates have a small stockpile of emergency Plan B pills, which have a shelf life of four years, that were sent to her by her mom after the election.
“We’ve had people come to our tables and ask if they can take multiple condoms and emergency contraceptives because we just don’t know if we’ll be able to hand them out going forward,” Jutze said.
Despite their fears, these women still feel hopeful.
“Regardless of what changes might happen, we will continue to advocate for women, their reproductive rights and the safety of women,” Hughes said.