Last week, Alabamians may have spotted a truck parked in front of a shopping center, movie theater or grocery store sporting a large digital billboard that read “Mifepristone & Misoprostol. Still available.” The truck, which made stops across rural Alabama throughout the week, is part of a guerrilla marketing strategy by Mayday Health, a nonprofit focused on educating Americans about abortion pill medications.
The campaign’s purpose is simple, Mayday’s Founder and Executive Director Leo Raisner told APR in a recent phone interview: let people know that they can still obtain abortion pills online and through the mail.
That information is vital, Raisner explained, because recent legal developments have created public confusion around whether such drugs are still legally available—particularly for those living in red states like Alabama.
“We sent trucks to Alabama and Arkansas primarily because over the last few weeks the headlines about abortion pills have been genuinely confusing,” Raisner told APR. “We wanted to correct the record and let people know that abortion pills are still available by mail.”
“When the news is murky, people can make decisions on what they think is true, and we want people to make decisions working from accurate information,” Raisner added.
Indeed, patients can still be prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol online and receive the pills by mail for the time being, due to a temporary stay granted by the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit filed by Louisiana against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA.
Louisiana is arguing in its suit that current federal rules violate its sovereignty by allowing residents to circumvent the state’s abortion ban through mail-order mifepristone. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals originally sided with Louisiana, placing abortion pill access in jeopardy earlier this month until the Supreme Court’s stay sent the case back to the lower courts for further consideration. Ultimately, experts anticipate that the case will return to the highest court on an official appeal, where a permanent decision on whether access will continue could be made.
While the legal fight continues, Raisner said Mayday will continue to focus on educating the public, particularly those living in rural areas.
“Just over 50 percent of people in this country even know that abortion pills exist,” Raisner said. “There’s a major information gap that this safe, effective medication exists and is available through the mail. And that’s what Mayday’s mission is: to remind people on digital channels and guerrilla marketing campaigns that pills are available through the mail.”
“That information tends to reach online communities, tends to reach cities, but really skips rural communities,” Raisner continued. “And so that’s why we sent these trucks to rural communities in Alabama to Walmart parking lots, Dick’s Sporting Goods parking lots, just to reach as many people as we could.”
For Raisner and other pro-choice advocates, maintaining access to abortion pills like mifepristone and misoprostol is essential following the 2022 Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“Nearly two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. now are medication abortions used with abortion pills,” Raisner explained. “Pills by mail is a big part of why the national abortion rate has stayed steady since Roe overturned, so just because a state passes a ban that shuts down a brick and mortar clinic, it doesn’t mean that people are out of options. That’s why Mayday exists, to remind people that no matter what, you still have options.”
Although Mayday’s billboard truck campaign is over in Alabama, Raisner told APR that the organization is continuing its educational work elsewhere in the country, including through strategic advertisements at 50 laundromat locations in San Diego and Los Angeles.
“This medication is so safe, it’s so effective, it’s been approved by the FDA for over two decades,” Raisner said. “There’s so much misinformation out there about what these pills are and what they aren’t, and we just want people to know accurate information about them. Folks should visit mayday.health to learn more.”
