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Paper short abstract

Advance provision of medication abortion involves providing abortion pills before pregnancy. This exploratory study describes motivations, feelings, and opinions related to advance provision in Poland. Our results suggest that advance provision can enhance autonomy and well-being in abortion care.

Paper long abstract

Advance provision of medication abortion involves providing abortion pills before pregnancy. It has the potential to avoid delays caused by legal and logistical barriers to abortion care. Having abortion pills on hand may also reduce the stigma and stress associated with abortion care-seeking and facilitate early access to abortion. This exploratory study describes motivations, feelings, and opinions related to advance provision in Poland.

We analyzed 648 advance provision consultations and follow-up surveys (response rates: survey 1 = 36.4%, survey 2 =17.2%) received by Women on Web from Poland in 2022–2023.

Our results show that the most common reasons for requesting advance provision were legal restrictions, unavailability of pills, and the comfort of at-home abortion. In addition, we detected three overarching themes: avoiding access problems; gaining peace of mind, control, safety, and security; and community use.

This study highlight the potential of advance provision of abortion pills as a response to legal, logistical, and emotional challenges faced by individuals in Poland seeking reproductive autonomy and safe abortion. Advance provision seems to allow people to have abortions earlier and can convert into a form of community care, which aligns with the conceptualization of early abortion as a self-care practice. Further research is needed to understand uses and experiences with advance provision in diverse settings.

This study adds to the growing body of evidence on the potential of advance provision as an innovative strategy to circumvent restrictions and enhance reproductive autonomy and well-being in abortion care, particularly—but not exclusively—in restrictive settings