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- Young people are relying on TikTok for abortion information amid legal uncertainty in the US.
- Confusion over abortion laws is increasing online engagement on the issue, researchers say.
- American lawmakers on Saturday voted to force the sale of TikTok in the US or ban it entirely.
Young people confused about abortion bans in their state are turning to TikTok for advice.
Now, the US government wants to ban TikTok too. House lawmakers voted Saturday to force the sale of TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, to an American company or face a domestic ban, citing national security concerns.
Wildly popular in the United States with 170 million users, TikTok has become a resource for American women trying to navigate the complex and varied laws on abortion.
Half of US states have passed bans or limits on abortion, including 11 states that have implemented gestational limits, some of which are as early as 6 weeks — before most women can even tell they are pregnant. Many of those bans are facing legal challenges and the issue is poised to be a central one in the upcoming presidential election.
The labyrinth of abortion laws is why American women need "legal abortion without borders," Merle Hoffman, a lifelong abortion activist who has run a New York City-based women's clinic since the 1970s, told Business Insider.
"I so firmly and deeply believe that the right to reproductive justice is just as fundamental and transcendent a right as the right to vote, the right to worship, the right to assembly. Just think if you had to have the right to vote in New Jersey but didn't have it in Wyoming. That would be absurd because we're all citizens, right?" Hoffman said.
As more people turn to social media for information about abortion, more women are sharing their personal experiences on TikTok. Some women are sharing videos detailing their medical procedures and home methods like mifepristone.
"I was really torn about whether or not I was going to make this video, but I think it's important," Sunni says at the start of her TikTok video, according to The New York Times. "It's the video I was looking for. I was like 'what's going to go on?'"
Sunni's video, which received over 400,000 views, details her experience with mifepristone. The video attracted attention from anti-abortion groups. Protect Life Michigan responded directly to the video on TikTok, calling it "heartbreaking."
Rebecca Nall, founder of abortion access nonprofit Ineeda, told The Times that "more and more people are going online" with questions about abortion because of "the chaos and the confusion and the stigma" of abortion bans.
Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, an OBGYN who shares women's health information on TikTok, said in a video that it's important for other women to show their experience with medication abortions for visibility.
"Shes fantastic for doing this," Lincoln says. "She showed what it was like, and in doing that, she's normalizing it. She's de-stigmatizing it. She's telling you, honestly, what happened."
Mikaela Attu's TikTok video about the day she had an abortion was viewed over 3.5 million times. Mikaela demonstrated various medical equipment, like the device used for her ultrasound. Ending the video, Attu said she felt completely normal after the procedure.
In a follow-up video, Attu said her procedure, which she had in Canada, took about 5 to 10 minutes. "I was totally happy with the process," Attu says in the video. "I went about my day. My husband and I went and had dinner."
"It's something that so many people go through," Sunni told the Times. "There are people walking around you going through this thing, and until they feel normal and accepted, they're not going to be able to heal."