Facebook and Instagram removing posts with mentions of abortion pills

Memes and status updates explaining how people can obtain abortion pills in the mail have exploded across social platforms in recent days.

General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked on Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs. By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.

Some of the posts demonstrated how people can legally obtain medication abortion by mail across the US, through abortion telehealth services like Hey Jane, Just the Pill, and Choix in states where such healthcare is legal.

Almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began removing some of the posts directly offering pills to people, Vice Media first reported on Monday.

The Associated Press obtained a screenshot on Friday of one Instagram post from a woman who offered to purchase or forward abortion pills through the mail, minutes after the court ruled to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.

In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy, including the ongoing issue of guns being sold openly on its platform.

A Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, confirmed in a tweet on Monday that the company will not allow individuals to gift or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information on how to access pills.

Most states in the US allow abortion pills to be administered via mail, while 19 prohibit such medication from being taken at home without a medical provider present. More than half of all abortions in the US are medication abortions, according to pro-choice research group the Guttmacher Institute.

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said on Friday that states should not ban mifepristone, the medication used to induce an abortion.

But some Republicans have already tried to stop their residents from obtaining abortion pills through the mail, with some states like West Virginia and Tennessee prohibiting providers from prescribing the medication through telemedicine consultation.