Within his first month in office, President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to limit information about pregnancy termination — scrubbing “abortion” search results from federal health websites, and withholding federal funding from reproductive-health organizations that give information on abortion.

In this growing vacuum of information, nonprofit abortion-access websites and helplines continue to connect pregnant people with resources. Many are preparing for the possibility that Trump could try to limit national access to abortion-inducing drugs, which have allowed more people to have abortions even in states with near-total bans. Republican-led states have also begun to challenge the laws of states that promote abortion access.

“It’s pretty wild out there right now in terms of who is required to follow what laws,” said Elisa Wells, referring to legally questionable actions from the Trump administration. In 2015, she co-founded Plan C, an online hub for information about how to self-manage abortions and where to get medical and legal support. “We’re in a new world.”

The site, which Wells said receives more than 2 million views annually, researches and reports on how people are accessing pills and lists nonprofits that advise people about their legal and medical concerns.

Here are some of the most common questions according to operators.

Is abortion banned throughout the country?

There is no national abortion ban.

“People definitely contact us and are confused,” said Elizabeth Ling, a senior helpline counsel at the nonprofit If/When/How. Its Repro Legal Helpline aims to help patients navigate the country’s current web of state abortion restrictions. “The moment that Trump was inaugurated, [there was] this confusion of thinking, like, ‘Oh, abortion is now banned across the country.’”

Ling said the helpline has had to hire more attorneys in order to keep up with a 40 percent increase in call volume since Trump became president. The helpline attorneys work through legal risks with callers based on their states and circumstances, she said.

Could I go to jail?

In the majority of states with abortion bans, it’s the providers who face punishment for abortions. Only Nevada explicitly makes it a crime, punishable by up to $10,000 and 10 years in state prison, to take drugs to terminate a pregnancy after the 24th week. That could change if Nevadans reapprove a state constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights next year.

Ling said many callers believe a state abortion ban means they could be charged with a crime.

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“It’s a complicated question,” she said. “There are no laws in any state that basically make it a crime for someone to end their own pregnancy. But … when you think about states like Louisiana, which have made abortion medication controlled substances, that creates this air of criminality.”

Other states, including Indiana, North Dakota and South Carolina have floated bills that would criminalize abortion seekers under homicide statutes. The North Dakota measure that would have charged pregnant people who obtain abortions with murder failed in the House this month.

Even though most abortion laws don’t criminalize pregnant people, pregnancy-related prosecutions have gone up since the 2022 Dobbs decision, according to Pregnancy Justice, which provides pro-bono criminal defense to people whose pregnancies are implicated in their charges.

The nonprofit estimates that there were more than 200 of these cases in 2023, the year after Roe v. Wade was overturned. The majority of defendants were living in poverty, in Alabama and Oklahoma, followed by South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi and Texas. Some were arrested for using drugs during pregnancy — including for legally prescribed medicine — and faced steep charges, like child neglect and endangerment, regardless of the pregnancy’s outcome. In several of the cases, women were charged with criminal homicide.

“It converts legal behavior for everyone else in the population into illegal behavior for pregnant people,” Pregnancy Justice senior vice president Dana Sussman said during a recent reproductive rights advocacy panel in Washington, D.C. “Most of these prosecutions do not need to show any harm at all. All the prosecutor needs to show is that the pregnant person exposed their embryo or fetus to some risk of harm. That’s enough for a felony in some states.”

States like Oklahoma and Tennessee are trying to expand rights for fetuses and embryos, which could result in more pregnancy-related prosecutions.

Travel questions

Reproductive Equity Now (REN) is a nonprofit that manages 24/7 hotlines in Connecticut and Massachusetts, in partnership with both states’ attorneys general. They offer free legal advice and resources to patients and providers.

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“We’ve spoken with providers who want clarity on how to lawfully provide care to patients, and helped those providers protect their assets to ensure they’re safe in a post-Roe reality,” said REN communications director Marina Chafa in an email. “We’ve assisted patients wanting to understand what resources are lawfully available to them, and we’ve talked to helpers about their ability to assist their loved ones in accessing essential abortion care.”

Chafa said REN’s Abortion Legal Hotline has received questions from college students asking if they’re allowed to terminate a pregnancy in their college town, if their home state has an abortion ban.

Ling has heard the same thing.

“Something else that has been pretty consistent for us ever since the Dobbs decision were lots of people being confused about whether or not they’re allowed to actually travel to get an abortion,” Ling said. “So lots of people thinking that they aren’t allowed to do that, or thinking that it’s a crime for them to have an abortion in their home state, when that’s not the case anywhere.”

However, anti-abortion activists have, for the past few years, been trying to prevent people from traveling to another state for a legal abortion. Such local and state efforts include trying to declare certain highways off limits to someone driving a friend or loved one to get a legal abortion across state lines.

I’m not pregnant, but can I get the abortion-pill regimen just in case?

Ling said that more people have asked the helpline about ordering pills before getting pregnant, even in cases where they’re trying to conceive but want to be prepared if something goes wrong.

“I think what that question is really kind of reflecting is a significant increase, both in fear but also distrust of our health care systems, of our governments,” Ling said. “Pregnancy loss is not an uncommon thing in this country … and people are worried about being honest with their healthcare provider if they do choose to have an abortion of any kind.”

So-called advance provision abortion is available even in states with abortion bans, Wells said.

Can you help me process my abortion?

While many abortion-rights helplines focus on helping connect people with financial, logistical and legal help, Exhale offers emotional support through its After-Abortion Textline to people struggling with their feelings after an abortion. Exhale’s co-executive director Jessie Welter said the increased difficulty and fear around getting an abortion has led to more “crisis-level” conversations on the textline, including greater distress and thoughts of suicide.

“We’re seeing more people who are experiencing anxiety around their abortion experience,” Welter said. “They’re finding it trickier to get there in the first place, and are now trying to navigate what that looks like to tell people or talk about it afterwards, too.”

Welter said clients express a range of emotions — grief, regret, relief — which can shift over time, something she experienced when she was a caller a decade ago.

“After my first abortion, I felt very isolated, very alone, and that directly impacted my mental health,” she said. “Exhale saved my life.”

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.