Despite the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the passage of state abortion bans, abortion procedures increased in the United States last year, according to a new study.
According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, an estimated 1,026,690 abortions were reported in the formal health care system in 2023. Published on Tuesday. This is the highest number measured in the United States in more than a decade.
This equates to about 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, an increase of 10 percent since 2020, the researchers found.
2023 will be the first calendar year since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, repealing a 1973 precedent that established a constitutional right to abortion.
The nation’s highest court gave states the power to restrict or ban abortion procedures, and in the months that followed, several Republican-led states moved to pass laws restricting or banning their residents’ access to abortion procedures. Ta.
Currently, a total of 14 states across the country have near-total abortion bans, and several states – Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah – have a enacted laws restricting access to abortion based on whether the The Guttmacher Institute pointed out the gestation period.
The study found that in nearly all states that do not have full abortion bans, the volume of abortions increased by an average of 25 percent since 2020. States adjacent to prohibited areas saw the largest increase (37%) from 2020 to 2023.
The Guttmacher Institute noted that medication abortions will account for 63% of all abortions in the United States in 2023, up from 53% in 2020. Guttmacher principal investigator Rachel Jones stressed that although access to medication abortion has improved, this does not mean it is the preferred method for patients. .
“Improved access to medication abortion is a positive development, but it is not a panacea,” Jones said in a release Monday. ” “As restrictions on abortion proliferate in the post-mortem period,dobbsEven if you prefer an in-person procedure, a medical abortion may be the most viable option, or the only option, for some people. ”
“Everyone has the right to access abortion care on their own terms, according to their needs and preferences. “Whether it’s done outside of the health care system,” she continued.
The researchers used national and state-level abortion data for 2023 and included only abortions reported in the U.S. formal health care system, so the annual estimate is “arguably an undercount.” he pointed out.
The estimates are created using a statistical model that combines data from a sample of providers with historical caseload data for all U.S. providers, Guttmacher said.
In the wake of the Dobbs decision, previous studies have found similar results. An analysis published in fall 2023 by the Family Planning Association’s WeCount project found that the number of clinician-performed abortions increased slightly nationwide in response to the Supreme Court ruling, but the number of abortions decreased significantly in states with abortion bans. It turned out that it did.
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