Calls started coming into Maine Family Planning clinics on November 5, and they haven’t stopped. In the wake of Trump’s re-election, Mainers across the state have been making appointments to get IUDs and implants, forms of long-lasting birth control, out of concern that the new administration could limit access to contraceptives.

“It’s been non-stop,” says Shasta Newenheim, regional manager for Maine Family Planning, a nonprofit with eighteen clinics across the state. “We’re seeing a lot of people who are choosing to either get (implants and IUDs) replaced early. Or, if it was something they thought they wanted in the past, they definitely want it now.” 

Maine Family Planning is not the only organization fielding an influx of calls. Providers that have reported increased contraception requests include Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Mabel Wadsworth Center, York Hospital and MaineHealth Obstetrics and Gynecology in Biddeford.

Among the providers that responded to questions from The Maine Monitor, only Northern Light Health reported no change in contraception requests. But an obstetrics and gynecology provider affiliated with Northern Light Health, who requested anonymity to protect her job, took issue with this characterization and told The Monitor that she has seen requests for long-acting reversible contraception and sterilization increase dramatically since the election. 

To Aspen Ruhlin, who works at the nonprofit Mabel Wadsworth Center in Bangor, the impetus behind the increase is clear: “If you’re on the pill, there’s always the risk that you run out and can’t get more. But if you have something in your uterus or arm that lasts for years, it’s a lot harder to lose access to that.” 

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which operates in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, saw its average weekly requests for long-acting reversible contraceptives more than double after the election, according to a November 21 press release. At the organization’s Maine health centers, appointments grew from a weekly average of 26 appointments to 48 in the week after the election. 

“Our patients are scared,” Nicole Clegg, interim-CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said in an interview eight days after the election. “We’ve already experienced a spike in patients seeking long-acting reversible contraception and emergency contraception.” 

“We saw this last time too,” she said. 

Maine Family Planning also saw an influx of patient requests following Trump’s 2016 election and after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade — in line with national trends.

A 2024 study published in the journal Jama Network Open that analyzed a national data set of medical and prescription claims found downward trends in most contraception services since 2019, but found sharp, temporary increases in all contraception services after the 2022 decision. 

“We are in a place that we’ve already been before; we know what we’re up against,” Newenheim said. “This is just another signal that there’s a real movement to take away (reproductive) rights. There’s always the question of, where is it going to end? Our patients feel that too.”

Newenheim said many patients are motivated by a fear that the Trump administration could bring changes that influence insurance coverage of birth control. 

During his first term, Trump expanded the types of employers that could deny contraception coverage on moral or religious grounds, weakening the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee in the Affordable Care Act, which mandates that most private insurance plans in the U.S. cover contraception without out-of-pocket costs for patients. 

Maine is one of 31 states that require private insurers to cover contraception, and one of eighteen states that prohibit cost-sharing, according to data compiled by KFF. MaineCare’s Limited Family Planning Benefit covers contraception — including pills, IUDs, and implants — for individuals at or below an annual income of $31,476.

Trump’s administration also enacted policies that stripped funding from reproductive rights organizations that provide contraception and abortion care, including a “gag rule” that prevented clinics receiving Title X funding from referring patients to an abortion provider. 

Clegg, of Planned Parenthood, said it’s unclear what will happen to federal funding after Trump takes office on Jan. 20, noting that “the crystal ball is cloudy.” But many Mainers are not waiting to find out. 

In addition to requests for IUDs and implants, Dr. Ashley Jennings, a gynecologist at York Hospital, cited increased requests for tubal ligations.

Planned Parenthood and Mabel Wadsworth Center described increased requests for vasectomies, and Planned Parenthood and Maine Family Planning described a jump in requests for gender-affirming care.

Mabel Wadsworth Center has seen a number of current patients seek gender-affirming surgery sooner than they’d originally planned.

“I have spoken to patients currently receiving gender-affirming health care who are in tears because they fear it’s going to be taken away,” said Newenheim. “This isn’t birth control. This is their day-to-day; this is their identity.”

Despite widespread concern, providers expressed their commitment to patient care.

“We refuse to be fearful,” says Newenheim. “We are dedicated to the mission of not giving up and ensuring these basic human rights are extended to our patients.”