While the overturning of Roe v. Wade may have decreased access to abortion care in the U.S., it has not resulted in a decrease in abortions. In fact, a new report from the Society of Family Planning shows that abortions have instead been increasing.
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Two summers ago, the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court issued the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling that overturned Roe. With the ruling, many states with “trigger” bans on abortions began pulling levers to make their laws stricter.
Efforts to limit abortion and reproductive healthcare access continue today. Just this year, Audacy reported on a six-week abortion ban in Florida, an Arizona Supreme Court ruling reviving a Civil War-era law that put criminal constraints on abortion and Republican senators blocking a move to codify access to contraceptives.
“The states with the largest average number of abortions per month during January-March 2024 included California, New York, Illinois, Florida, and New Jersey,” said the #WeCount report published Wednesday by the Society for Family Planning. “The large number of abortions provided in Florida is noteworthy given the new law banning abortion after six weeks gestation, enacted May 1, 2024.”
Before the Dobbs ruling, abortion rates in the U.S. were declining. In 2019, the Guttmacher Institute reported that abortions had been declining since 2011.
At the time, it said “restrictions were not the main driver of the decline,” and that the drop appeared to be linked to an overall decrease in births. Guttmacher recorded an uptick in abortions in 2020 and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recorded an uptick in abortions in 2021, according to the Pew Research Center. It also noted that 62% of Americans believe that abortions should be legal in all or most cases.
Shortly before the Dobbs ruling, Audacy also reported that strict laws did not always result in lower abortion rates. Still, the recent report shows that states with the greatest cumulative declines in abortion volume over the 21 month period tracked include Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama.
Per the #WeCount report, the national monthly total of abortions exceeded 100,000 in January of 2024 for the first time in the seven years that it has been measuring abortions. That increase occurred even as 14 states have banned abortion completely. Between January and March of this year there was an average of 98,990 abortions monthly, said the report.
“This elevated volume of abortion demonstrates the continued and growing need for abortion care across the country, and has been driven by an expansion of telehealth abortion care,” said the society.
Around 20% of national abortions are provided for via telehealth, according to the report.
“Telehealth abortion is making a critical difference for people seeking abortion care in this increasingly restrictive environment,” said Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, #WeCount Co-Chair and professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH).
As of this March, six states had enacted laws that provide legal protections to clinicians who offer abortion care via telehealth in states that have abortion or telehealth bans, said the society.
“Telehealth abortions provided under shield laws averaged 9,200 per month from January to March 2024. In the nine months from July 2023 to March 2024, over 65,000 people in states with total or six-week bans and states with telehealth restrictions have accessed medication abortion provided under shield laws,” it said in a press release.
Audacy reported in March on skyrocketing abortion pill use in the wake of the Dobbs ruling.
“By providing safe, effective, FDA-approved medications to patients in all 50 states, we’re doing what we can to mitigate the Dobbs decision’s tremendous damage to abortion seekers’ reproductive health and autonomy,” said Dr. Angel Foster, Co-Founder of The Massachusetts Abortion Access Project (The MAP) of abortion medication use.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, said Wednesday during a campaign speech in Wisconsin that Congress would restore Roe v. Wade protections if she is elected. She noted that her GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, “handpicked” three of the six justices who voted in favor of Dobbs.
“I will sign it into law,” Harris said of the potential legislation.
There have been previous attempts to codify abortion – for example, one in May 2022 failed without support from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.).
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