With Brett Kavanaugh’s presumed confirmation to the Supreme Court, it’s more likely that chemical contraception will be banned one day in the US. With this in mind, I was looking at how difficult for instance norethindrone is to synthesize.

It’s only a five-step synthesis, using no particularly hard-to-obtain ingredients and not that much technical skill (for today) or danger. I’m very certain I could learn to do it myself with probably 4-5 months of self-teaching and $50,000 of equipment and materials. Someone with actual o-chem experience could probably do it in weeks if not days.

I have no plans to synthesize anything, but expect there to be a big black market in this if we go full Handmaid’s Tale here.