The number of abortions in the United States continues to rise, even though 14 states have outright banned abortions in the 18 months since Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to new data.
Tuesday’s report from the Family Planning Association WeCount project Much of that increase is likely related to telemedicine, which was found to account for 19 percent of abortions nationwide by December 2023.
The report is also the first to fully capture the impact of health care providers using Blue State Shield laws to provide telemedicine abortions.
The Shield Act provides certain legal protections to clinicians who provide abortion care through telemedicine to people who live in states where abortion is completely prohibited or has strict restrictions. In 2023, shield laws went into effect in five of her states: Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Washington.
Since WeCount data was collected, Maine and California have also passed shield laws that protect health care providers providing care across the country.
From October to December 2023, in states with bans or severe restrictions, nearly 8,000 people each month received medical abortions from clinicians operating under shield law protections and were counted in the report. accounting for nearly half of all telemedicine abortions.
Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said, “Despite the Supreme Court weighing the fate of telemedicine abortion care, access to medical abortion through telemedicine remains the same across the country.” continues to play an increasingly important role.” He is co-chair of Standards in Reproduction Health (ANSIRH) and WeCount.
By the end of 2023, health care providers in states with shield laws were prescribing abortion pills to an average of 5,800 people per month in states with full abortion bans or six-week abortion bans.
Shield Act providers also prescribed abortion pills to approximately 2,000 women each month in states where local laws restrict prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine.
Excluding abortions provided through telemedicine under the Shield Act, there will be an average of 86,000 abortions per month in 2023, compared to an average of about 82,000 per month in 2022, according to the report. There was an abortion.
The report estimates that in the 15 states with outright abortion bans or six-week abortion bans, more than 180,000 abortions would likely have been obtained through clinic providers if abortions had not been banned. are doing. States with the largest cumulative decline in abortions over 18 months included Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama.
Alison Norris, a professor at Ohio University, said, “Even though the number of abortions nationwide is increasing, access to in-person abortion care has virtually disappeared in states with abortion bans.” I can’t afford to miss it.” He is a member of the State University School of Public Health and co-chair of WeCount. “The loss of clinic-based care, which accounts for more than 80% of abortion care, is a devastating loss of access for vast swaths of the country.”
States with the highest cumulative jump in abortions in the 18 months after Dobbs included Illinois, Florida, and California.
Florida enacted a six-week abortion ban on May 1, so the impact of the new law was not assessed in the report. However, given the relatively high number of abortions in the state and the total abortion bans in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, this could have far-reaching implications. Probability is high.
Most of the rapidly increasing states are adjacent to anti-abortion states, but states that are geographically distant from anti-abortion states, such as California, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, are also seeing large increases.
The report noted that the increase in numbers is likely due to travelers from states without access to medical care and an increase in abortions among residents within those states.
Updated at 12:26 p.m.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
