Number of US Abortions Hasn't Changed Much Since Ruling

Women who need them are going out of state to avoid bans or using telemedicine to get pills
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 3, 2024 9:00 AM CST
Number of US Abortions Hasn't Changed Much Since Ruling
An anti-abortion supporter sits behind an 'open' sign at the Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., in July 2022.   (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

The number of abortions performed each month is about the same as before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade more than a year and a half ago, a new report finds. The latest edition of the #WeCount report conducted for the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit organization that promotes research on abortion and contraception, finds that between 81,150 and 88,620 abortions took place each month from July through September of last year, the most recent period for which survey results are available, per the AP. Those numbers are just slightly lower than the monthly average of about 86,800 from April through June 2022, before Roe and just after was overturned.

But abortion data is seasonal, and the same survey found more abortions across the US in the spring months of 2023 than it did in the period the year before leading up to the court's decision. The report also finds that prescriptions of abortion pills by telemedicine have become common, accounting for about one in every six abortions in the most recent three months of survey results.

Although the number of monthly abortions has dropped to nearly zero in states with bans, they have risen in states that allow abortion, including Florida, Illinois, and Kansas, which border states with bans. The report does not cover self-managed abortions obtained outside the formal health care system—such as if someone gets abortion pills from a friend without a prescription.

(More Roe v. Wade stories.)

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