Amazon Places Purchase Limit on Emergency Contraceptive Pills

Amazon has placed a temporary purchase limit of three units per week on emergency contraceptive pills, the company said on Tuesday.

The move comes days after the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling that recognised women’s constitutional right to abortion.

Women with unwanted pregnancies in the country now may face the choice of traveling to another state where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills online, or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.

The ruling has also had an impact on the demand for over-the counter emergency contraceptive pills, known as Plan B, which are taken within days of sexual intercourse.

Pharmacy chain CVS Health said on Monday it was implementing a temporary purchase limit of three on emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Aftera, while Walgreens Boots Alliance said it had no purchase limit in place for Plan B pills at this time.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure.

Such social media posts ostensibly aimed to help women living in states where preexisting laws banning abortion suddenly snapped into effect on Friday. That’s when the high court overruled Roe vs Wade, its 1973 decision that declared access to abortion a constitutional right.

Memes and status updates explaining how women could legally obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded across social platforms. Some even offered to mail the prescriptions to women living in states that now ban the procedure.

General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.