Facebook And Instagram Are Taking Down Posts About Abortion Pills Following Roe V Wade Decision
Posts offering to mail abortion pills were taken down, but not ones about guns or weed.
Facebook and Instagram have begun removing posts on abortion pills after the overturning of Roe v Wade in the United States.
The social media giants — both under parent company Meta — have responded to the surge of discussion around abortion pills on their platforms since the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday.
A report from VICE said that users who shared statuses informing others that FDA-approved pills could be sent in the mail, as opposed to filling an in-person script, were almost immediately removed, saying some people were even temporarily banned from their accounts.
However, a spokesperson for Meta admitted on Wednesday that some content around abortion pills had incorrectly been taken down. “Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request, or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed,” they said. “Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription is allowed. We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.”
A reporter for AP tested the limits of the new ban, making a status that read: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills”. Predictably, the post was taken down a minute later, with a warning that it was in violation of Facebook’s standards on regulated goods.
However, when reposting the same status — this time with the word ‘gun’ and ‘weed’ in place of ‘abortion pill’ — neither were automatically flagged, according to The Guardian.
On Wednesday, Amazon announced a temporary purchase limit of contraceptive pill ‘Plan B’ (known in Australia as the ‘Morning After Pill’) after a spike in demand throughout the week.
Abortion is banned in at least seven states, with six states expected to follow suit, and three states having had a ban attempt blocked, according to the New York Times.
“It’s estimated that roughly half of all states will move to ban abortion now that Roe is overturned,” said the organisation Abortion Finder. “Abortion will still be legal in some states.”