SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — As other states have severely restricted abortion access, a new study finds that New Jersey and Pennsylvania have seen an uptick in people having abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
The Society of Family Planning found a 6% increase in abortions in Pennsylvania and 7% increase in New Jersey, while nationally, numbers were down.
“So the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade really did cause a sudden and severe disruption in abortion care,” said Allison Norris, a professor at Ohio State University and a study contributor. She said when compiling numbers, they looked at comprehensive data from every state.
“The main finding is that there weren’t enough increases in the places where there were increases to counteract the decreases in the states that have these really severe declines,” she said. “So what that means is that there were thousands of people who were unable to obtain an abortion.”
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Women from Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky traveled to Western Pennsylvania to get abortions, Norris said.
“It was important to do this study because most of the data we have about abortion care in the United States comes summed at an annual number, and it was really important to see how the Supreme Court decision impacted people living in states all across the United States,” she said.
In the two months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the study found there were about 10,000 fewer abortions nationally than the previous months.
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