A new report finds that the number of abortions performed each month in the United States is about the same as it was before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and abortion rights nationwide more than a year and a half ago.
The latest #WeCount report from the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit that promotes abortion and contraceptive research, found that from July to September of last year, the most recent period, between 81,150 and 88,620 occurred each month Findings are available for abortion. Those numbers are only slightly lower than the monthly average of about 86,800 between April and June 2022, before and after Roe was overturned.
But abortion data is seasonal, and the same survey found that more abortions were performed across the U.S. in the spring of 2023 than in the year before the court’s ruling.
The report also found that prescribing abortion pills via telemedicine has become common, accounting for about one in six abortions in the most recent three-month survey.
“Even if a state bans abortion, people still need and seek abortion care,” Allison Norris, a professor at the Ohio State University School of Public Health and one of the study’s co-chairs, said in a statement. “We cannot allow the overall number of abortions across the country to remain static, masking the incredible unmet need and the catastrophic impact abortion bans have on people who already have minimal access to abortion.”
The report estimates that if states were not allowed to ban abortions, the total number of abortions in the 14 states that currently ban abortions at all stages of pregnancy would increase by 120,000 during the survey period.
While the number of abortions per month has dropped to near zero in states that ban it, it has increased in states that allow it, including Florida, Illinois and Kansas, which border states that ban it.
The tracking effort collects monthly data from health care providers across the country to understand abortion trends since Roe v. Wade was overturned. In some states, some figures are estimates. The effort makes the data public with a lag of less than six months, showing trends more quickly than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual report, whose latest report covers abortions in 2021.
The report does not include self-administered abortions performed outside the formal health care system, such as when someone obtains the abortion pill from a friend without a prescription.
The Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson led to immediate changes in state policy. Currently, 14 states are banning abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with two others enforcing abortion bans after six weeks of pregnancy — often before a woman realizes she is pregnant. Other Republican-controlled states have implemented looser restrictions. Courts have suspended enforcement of certain injunctions.
Meanwhile, most Democratic-controlled states have taken steps to protect abortion access. Some states have enacted executive orders or laws seeking to prevent states with bans from conducting abortion-related investigations across state lines. Five states, including Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Washington, have enacted laws seeking to protect providers who provide abortion care via telemedicine.
The report’s total includes cases in which medical providers in those states prescribed medical abortion to patients in states that ban abortion or restrict versions of the drug in a national count, but does not detail the number by state.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether mifepristone, one of two drugs most commonly used in combination to cause abortion, was properly approved.
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