Women in the US have been stockpiling the morning after pill following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade last week.

The legal decision was officially overturned on 24 June, removing people’s constitutional right to an abortion and resulting in women and parents stockpiling options over concerns that access to family planning resources could be limited, according to the New York Times.

Stix, a vaginal and reproductive health company, told The Times that they’d seen a surge in demand for its morning-after pill of more than 600% in 24 hours after the Supreme Court ruling.

“Seventy-two percent of those people were buying more than one dose,” said Cynthia Plotch, co-CEO of Stix.

Lauren Frazier, the director of communications and marketing for Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates, said they have received a spike in calls. 

“What we have seen is a significant increase in calls to our patient access centre, from people wanting to know how many packs of birth control and emergency contraception they can stockpile because they’re afraid that if they experience an unintended or unplanned pregnancy that they will not be able to access care in our state.”

“It is very important for folks in Georgia to know that if you need to access abortion care in our state, you can still access abortion care in our state,” she said.

According to The Times, some women have also been purchasing the pills to have a “quick burst of control or power” during these unprecedented times.

Katie Thomas said she bought pills for her 16-year-old daughter after discovering that abortion would become illegal in her state.

She told The Times: “Just the thought of something happening to my daughter, whether by force or by her choice, and there’s an unwanted pregnancy, I want to be able to handle that.”

“If I need to handle that on my own, then I will.”

Meanwhile, Hey Jane, a company providing telemedicine abortions across certain states, has experienced a surge of visitors to its website.

“Following the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, June 24, Hey Jane’s site traffic grew almost 10 times and patient demand more than doubled compared to the last month’s average,” company CEO Kiki Freedman told Newsweek.

“More generally, over the past few months, we’ve seen an increase in patients reporting that they’re coming to Hey Jane because of longer-than-expected appointment wait times, which suggests to us that bans in places like Texas were already having a ripple effect in states with abortion access.”

At the time of writing, eight US states have banned abortion with 10 facing a ban or severe restrictions soon.

Image: Getty