Demand for Restart morning-after pills jump 966% after election

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Some retailers that sell emergency contraceptive pills are reporting skyrocketing sales since Tuesday's election.

Winx Health was founded in 2019, so women could order pregnancy tests online and avoid what founder Cynthia Plotch called "awkward" encounters at the drug store.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal constitutional protections for abortion in 2022, Winx expanded its offerings and launched its own emergency contraceptive pill called Restart.

"In the past 72 hours, since this election has been called, we have seen sales for Restart— our morning-after pill — jump 966%," Plotch told WPTV Friday. "One of the things that's most interesting here, I think, is that we're not seeing people buy single doses of this product. Women are buying the value pack. They're buying in bulk."

Plotch said she does not yet have state-specific data, but 10 states had an abortion rights measure on the ballot Tuesday. Of those 10, Florida was one of three that rejected those measures.

Florida's Google search trends for the terms "birth control" and "Plan B," a popular brand of emergency contraceptive pill, showed both terms reached their highest levels in a year on Wednesday — the day after the election.

But the trend is not that simple, Plotch said.

"I think it's easy to look at the search trends and say everyone's trying to buy emergency contraception," Plotch said. "In reality, when abortion bans have gone into effect, we have seen sales for Plan B, the leading brand here, plummet by 60%."

That's according to a study in JAMA Network Open, which blames part of that decline on the closure of family planning clinics that provided emergency contraceptives following abortion bans.

Emergency contraceptive pills do not induce abortions and is legal in all 50 states.