Reproductive rights

Free hotline and resources for your questions about reproductive health

New York Attorney General Letitia James has teamed with 24 law firms and eight nonprofits nationwide to provide New York residents and visitors with free (pro-bono) legal information and resources about accessing abortion.

The task force operates a free hotline, 212-899-5567, that provides legal information and referrals to:

• New Yorkers seeking an abortion
• patients wanting to travel to New York for an abortion
• people and organizations providing material support to patients
• New York health care providers

Abortion is legal and protected throughout New York

New York has robust protections in place to ensure that anyone who can get pregnant — including transgender men and nonbinary people — can get an abortion.

In New York, ‬abortion care is basic health care

New York made abortion legal in 1970 – three years before Roe v. Wade. In 2019, New York passed the Reproductive Health Act to protect access to reproductive rights throughout the state and make the right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade part of state law. Even after Roe was overturned in 2022, New York ensures that all pregnant people (including transgender men and nonbinary people) have the right to a safe and legal abortion:

• You have the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks from the start of pregnancy. After 24 weeks, abortion is legal if the fetus is not viable or if your life or physical or mental health is at risk. If you are younger than 18, you do not have to notify your parents or receive their consent for an abortion or other reproductive-health services.
• Health care providers generally cannot share medical records or information about your appointments or procedures with your partner, parents, guardians, or anyone else without your permission.
• Your employer cannot access personal information about your or your partner’s reproductive-health decision making. Your employer, or an employer considering you for a job, cannot discriminate against you based on your reproductive-health decision making.
• It is illegal for anyone to use force or threats to injure, intimidate, or interfere with you because you are seeking reproductive-health services.
• New York provides public funding for abortion and requires state-regulated private insurers to cover “medically necessary” abortion care. Starting January 1, 2023, every private insurance plan that offers maternity-care coverage must cover abortion.

Do not rely on online searches. Instead, try sites operated by legitimate reproductive-rights organizations. Our task force has reviewed these organizations and feel they represent some of the safest resources for finding abortion help.

You can also ask a trusted physician, or even a trusted friend, for a referral.

As you look for a provider, beware of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). CPCs have websites that look like health-care providers, but they usually do not provide any medical services and never provide abortions. CPCs are often located close to genuine abortion clinics and might even show up on web searches for abortion clinics.

The National Network of Abortion Funds has a useful clinic-finding guide that includes tips on how to tell if a clinic is reputable and provides real abortion services.

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs; sometimes called pregnancy resource centers) are places that try to prevent pregnant people from having abortions – and sometimes even from using contraception. These organizations typically:

• run ads asking if you’re “pregnant, scared, and need help”
• make abortion sound very dangerous
• will not say if they will or will not perform abortions, even if they use the word “choice” in their advertising

Most CPCs are not health care providers. Even if they have medical staff, they do not provide abortion counseling or referrals, and have very limited services. Many are affiliated with religious organizations that oppose abortion, contraception, and education about reproductive health.

If you accidentally go to a CPC instead of a real abortion clinic, the CPC staff will try to talk you out of having an abortion.

Before doing anything at a facility, ask whether it provides abortion services. If they don’t directly answer your question, give you a vague answer, or change the subject, you are probably dealing with a CPC.

Be sure you are at a real health care facility that offers abortion services or referrals before you share any personal information. CPCs are not subject to the same privacy laws as health care facilities.

The Repro Legal Helpline can help you understand your legal rights in your state and find out if you can receive an abortion without notifying your parents or getting their consent. If you live in a state that requires your parents to be involved, this helpline can help you try to get an abortion without telling your parents by getting a judge’s permission (judicial bypass). The free, confidential helpline is answered by lawyers and advocates.

In New York, you have the right to have an abortion without telling your spouse or parents or seeking their permission. If you have questions about having an abortion in New York, call our hotline at 212-899-5567.

Using pills to end an early pregnancy is called a medication abortion. Plan C Pills offers a lot of medical and legal information on medication abortion, and a pill-finder tool for your location. Be aware that it may not be legal to use them in your state.

How does the lawsuit involving the FDA’s approval of medication abortion affect abortion care in New York? Is medication abortion still legal in New York?

Medication abortion remains legal and available in New York.

It has remained available in spite of the lawsuit. This is because lower courts ruled to cancel FDA’s approval of the abortion drugs, but their rulings never took effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court has now ruled that the lawsuit was invalid from the beginning. For now, people’s access to medication abortion in New York is no longer threatened.

Here is a summary of what has recently happened with medication abortion in the U.S.:

• Mifepristone is one of two FDA-approved drugs commonly used together in medication abortion (the other is misoprostol).
• In November 2022, a group of anti-abortion individuals and health care providers sued FDA. They demanded that the court force the agency to cancel its approval of mifepristone.
• In April 2023, a federal judge in Texas ordered FDA to overturn its approval of mifepristone. If the FDA had done this, the drug would have become unavailable nationwide.
• When the federal government appealed the Texas judge’s decision, the intermediate court reversed the decision and upheld FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone. However, the court ordered FDA to bring back some medically restrictions on dispensing the medication that it had determined were medically unnecessary. The FDA had lifted some of these restrictions in 2016, and later lifted others in 2021.
• Neither the Texas judge’s decision nor the intermediate court ruling ever went into effect. That was because the federal government appealed the case. The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of the rulings while it considered the appeal.
• In June 2024, the Supreme Court reversed both lower court decisions. The court found that the plaintiffs did not have the right to challenge FDA’s actions in federal court in the first place.
• As a result, medication abortion remains available in New York under the current conditions set by FDA.

Even if the availability of mifepristone changes in the future, health care providers may still be able to perform medication abortion. Misoprostol, the second drug used for medication abortion, can be used alone. In addition, other abortion methods, including surgical abortion, remain available and legally protected in New York.

If you seek abortion care, speak with your health care provider about your options.

We will update this FAQ regularly, as the legal landscape is changing quickly.

You may be able to get help. The National Network of Abortion Funds lists funds across the country that provide financial help for abortion and related needs, like traveling to another state, or paying for housing while you are there. The site also has information about finding out if your insurance will pay for an abortion and guidance on finding a clinic.

Do New York laws protect me if I travel to the state of New York for an abortion? What about people who help me in New York?

If you are in New York to have a legal abortion, our protections include:

• We will not return you to another state that wants to arrest you for a legal abortion you had in New York (unless the state claims that you illegally had the abortion outside New York).
• New York police cannot arrest you or anyone in New York helping you, help another state arrest you, or provide another state with information about your abortion (unless they have a court-issued subpoena or warrant that is not connected to the other state’s attempt to penalize reproductive health care that is lawful in New York ).
• No one in New York can threaten, hurt, intimidate, or interfere with you because you wish to have an abortion or use any other reproductive-health service.
• You can countersue an out-of-state agency or individual who prosecutes you for having a legal abortion in New York.

This is as long as law enforcement in New York can tell that these other states’ requests concern legal abortion care, which New York law enforcement may not be able to do. Note that New York law can protect only what you do in New York. For example, if you go to a clinic in New York and take your first abortion pill there, but then return to your home state and take the second pill, New York law cannot protect your out-of-state actions.

You may have to hire a lawyer. If you would like advice for your specific situation, call our hotline at 212-899-5567.