‘The million-dollar question of this election’: Women’s health startups are confronting a shifting legal landscape

After a full day of meetings at Julie, a startup that sells a morning-after pill, CEO Amanda E/J Morrison jumped a flight from New York to Boston and headed to a small, private college, where a trivia night awaited her. Dozens of students shuffled into a classroom with plates of chicken tenders, Texas toast, and bright blue boxes of the emergency contraceptive.

Morrison had worked with the Planned Parenthood Generation Action club at Suffolk University to sponsor the event, part of Julie’s efforts to win a new generation of consumers. However, she had another, more pressing reason for being there. Julie is doing more campus events to clear up some of the confusion about emergency contraception — namely, that it isn’t medication abortion.

Standing at the head of the classroom, Morrison read off a projector screen, “Emergency contraceptives like Julie are legal in how many states? 25, 48, 50, 37.” Students tapped their answers into a quiz app. “It’s 37,” Lily, a spirited sophomore, whispered to her teammates.

In a minute, the correct answer appeared on screen, and the quiet chatter rose to a clamor. Half the teams said 37 states.

“Fifty states, guys. It’s everywhere,” Morrison said.

When asked why she said 37, Lily said, “Just the way things are going.”

In states that outlaw abortion, some patients and politicians worry that contraception could be in legal jeopardy, too. There’s no federal law preserving access to birth control, rather, a patchwork of state laws and court decisions holding it in place. Another Trump term is a senior correspondent at Insider covering startups and venture capital. She can be reached via the encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 603-913-3085 and email at mrussell@businessinsider.com.

Rebecca Torrence is a correspondent at Business Insider writing about healthcare startups and venture capital. Send her an email at rtorrence@businessinsider.com.