Pennsylvania mom stockpiles ‘morning after’ emergency contraception pills

When Jennifer Martin was 19 years old, she said she became aware of what she calls a “war on women.”

Now the mother of two and a retired psychology professor, Martin said that she was aware of efforts against women’s autonomy in making their own health care decisions years before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization reversed Roe v. Wade and its affirmation of a national right to abortion.

“A lot of people are really surprised about the overturn of Roe, but for me, it’s just a continuation of what’s already been happening,” Martin told the Pennsylvania Independent. “In June of last year, I thought, OK, things are not good; even if the administration leans left, we still have lots of people making decisions that are in control, who aren’t in touch with science or women’s needs as far as health care.”

By November of 2024, Martin said, she began stockpiling “morning-after” emergency contraception pills, sold under a number of brand names, including Plan B. The drug, levonorgestrel, lowers the chance of becoming pregnant by 77% to 89% if a woman takes it within three days after having unprotected sex. 

Martin said she isn’t stockpiling the pills just for her family — she has two daughters, ages 27 and 24 — but also for her community. 

“If somebody, a stranger, that I come across needs it for any reason, and a lot of these reasons are heartbreaking, that’s something really small that I can do now to get ready. And it’s not a question of if it’s going to happen, it’s when, in my mind,” said Martin, who buys the pills online in bulk. 

Martin notes that, because the medications used in nonsurgical abortions require a prescription, she is only stockpiling the morning-after pill, which has a shelf life of four years. 

Martin said she isn’t solely concerned about restrictions on reproductive rights and access to abortion, but that the Trump administration’s recent freeze on public communications from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are an indication of the direction in which health care policy could go.  She also noted the cancellation of meetings of NIH panels that review research grant applications for funding. 

“Given that I’m a scientist myself, I am really concerned about funding for science,” Martin said. “Because these kinds of things, the drugs that are made, the process by which we go through to have drugs that are safe, that affects everybody, so not just people that are possibly disabled, who are women — that’s going to affect everyone. And I don’t think everybody is paying attention to that.”

In 2003, after a federal judge in Texas placed a stay on the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, several Democratic-led states began stockpiling the medication.

Pennsylvania was not one of those states. 

“My state law here in Pennsylvania prohibits me from paying for mifepristone with state dollars, so we’re not able to stockpile as my fellow governors have done,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said in 2023. 

While the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in June 2024 that the plaintiffs who sued to revoke the approval of mifepristone lacked standing, upholding the approval and preserving patients’ access, the decision did not rule out the possibility that other plaintiffs might try again. And by the end of 2024, six states had reported they were stockpiling mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used in over half of abortions in the U.S.

Mifipristone has a shelf life of about five years; misoprostol’s is about two years. 

Although abortion is currently legal until up to 24 weeks of pregnancy in Pennsylvania, Martin worries it won’t stay that way. 

“We have to be prepared, whether we think it’s going to happen or not. We’re talking about women’s lives. This isn’t just, you know, the price of eggs anymore,” she said.