The number of women who receive abortions in the US actually increased in the first three months of 2024 compared to before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a report released Wednesday found, reflecting the lengths Democratic-controlled states have gone to expand access.
One of the main reasons for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states have enacted laws to protect doctors who use telemedicine to see patients in places where abortion is prohibited, according to the Planned Parenthood Society’s quarterly #WeCount report, which supports access to abortion.
Data comes first November elections in which abortion rights advocates hope the issue will drive voters to the polls. In some places, voters will have the opportunity to enshrine or reject state-level abortion protections.
Consequences of the Supreme Court June 2022 decision In the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, the Women’s Health Organization has remade the way abortion works across the country. #WeCount data, collected in a monthly survey since April 2022, shows how those seeking and obtaining abortions have adapted to changes in laws.
The research found that the number of abortions dropped to nearly zero in states that ban abortions at all stages of pregnancy and dropped by about half in places that ban them after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Fourteen states are enforcing abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and another four ban them after about six weeks of pregnancy.
The numbers have risen in places where abortion remains legal until late in pregnancy — and especially in states like Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico, which border states with bans.
The report estimates that if not for the post-Dobbs bans, there would have been about 9,900 more abortions per month — and a total of 208,000 since then — in these states. The numbers increased by more than 2,600 per month in Illinois, about 1,300 in Virginia, 1,200 in Kansas and more than 500 in New Mexico.
Abortion pills and telemedicine play a key role. In March, doctors in states with laws to protect medical providers used telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills to nearly 10,000 patients in states with bans or restrictions on telehealth abortions — representing about 1 in 10 abortions in the U.S.
Laws to protect medical providers who use telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills began taking effect in some Democratic-led states last year.
“This eases the burden on clinics,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine who co-leads #WeCount. “So it creates more space for people coming to the clinics.”
Abortion opponents say the fight for miscarriage medication mifepristone it didn’t end after a narrow Supreme Court ruling which has preserved access to it for now. But so far there have been no legal challenges to protect the laws.
The latest edition of the survey covers the first three months of this year, when it counted an average of just under 99,000 abortions per month, compared with 84,000 in the two months before Dobbs. January was the first time, since the beginning of the research, that more than 100,000 abortions were recorded across the country in a single month.
The tracking effort collects monthly data from providers across the country, creating a snapshot of abortion trends. In some states, a portion of the data is estimated. The effort makes data public with less than a six-month delay, giving a picture of trends much more quickly than annual reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the most recent report covers abortion in 2021.
Before the protection laws started to take effect and #WeCount started counting them, people were still receiving some pills in prohibited places.
One of the states where abortions increased was Florida. That changed in April, when a ban came into force after six weeks of pregnancy. The data does not yet reflect this change.
The policy could change again through a vote in November that would make abortion legal until viability, generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks of pregnancy. It needs at least 60% approval to be added to the state constitution.
One no vote will come from Mia Adkins, a 20-year-old senior at Florida International University.
“Instead of pushing for more legal abortion later in pregnancy, we should be pushing for laws that protect these pregnant parents and students and provide them with the support they need,” said Akins, a senior at Florida International University.
Florida is one of six states where abortion-related measures are already on the ballot. Election officials’ determinations on whether to add similar questions are pending in four more states. In one of them, Nebraska, there are divergent changes: one to allow access until viability and another to maintain the current ban on most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion rights advocates have prevailed in all seven U.S. abortion votes since 2022. This tracks with public opinion polls that have shown growing support for abortion rights, including a recent Associated Press-NORC Poll which found that 6 in 10 Americans think their state should allow someone to have a legal abortion if they don’t want to get pregnant for any reason.
One change to protect access could be on the ballot in Arizona, a political state where lawsuits have influenced abortion policy — and access — since the Dobbs decision.
The state Supreme Court ruled in April that Arizona must impose an 1864 ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, only to have lawmakers repeal this law. The state’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy remains. The ballot measure would expand it to 24 weeks.
Natalie Harper, a 23-year-old independent who normally doesn’t vote, said the potential to bring back the Civil War-era ban “absolutely” impacts her decision to vote in favor of the ballot measure this November. “Seeing this as a possibility really made me realize that everyone’s pro-choice voices need to be heard in hopes that we never go in this direction again,” she said.
In Missouri, which has banned almost all abortions and where almost nothing has been reported in the new data, election officials will soon be able to certify whether a proposed constitutional amendment ensuring the right to abortion received enough petition signatures to qualify for the vote in the reliably Republican state.
University of Missouri political scientist Peverill Squire said if the measure is on the ballot, it could attract enough Democratic voters to help boost some competitive legislative races.
“They can build on the personal freedom arguments that Republicans have generally taken up in recent elections,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Sejal Govindarao in Phoenix and David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
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