Doctor Angel Foster's fight for abortion rights in the United States

Something improbable happened on the night of Donald Trump's presidential election on November 5, 2024. A phenomenon that no one expected, including those in medical and activist circles: the explosion, across the United States, of demand for abortion pills and morning-after pills. In an unprecedented wave of panic, women of all ages anticipated a tightening of reproductive health legislation.

And across the country, they turned to all sorts of online platforms to place orders: for themselves, their daughters, their friends, even women they knew were vulnerable. It was irrational, haphazard, and, in many cases, doomed to failure—abortion drugs require a prescription. But at least they felt they were arming themselves and taking control of their destiny.

Dr. Angel Foster was stunned. She went to bed with a bitter taste and the feeling of reliving the same disaster as eight years earlier, when Donald Trump triumphed over Hillary Clinton, for whom she had voted. Before falling asleep, she wondered about the consequences that the election of this president would have on the organization she had launched a year earlier: the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (MAP), an online service for prescribing and supplying abortion pills.

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