The number of abortions performed in the U.S. has increased since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide, a report released Wednesday found.
In the first three months of 2024, an average of 98,990 abortions were performed per month, according to a new study by the pro-choice Society of Family Planning (SFP), compared to 84,000 per month in the two months before the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022.
Although abortions have decreased in the 14 states with abortion restrictions, they increased in states with liberal abortion access, especially states like Illinois, Kansas, and New Mexico, which border states with restrictions.
“I am expecting the number to plateau at some point. But with each report, we see the numbers increase, so we’re not at that plateau just yet,” Ushma Upadhyay, co-chair of SFP’s research project, #WeCount, and professor at the University of California, San Francisco said. “There continues to be a lot of unmet need that is being met in various ways.”
Telehealth services — by which doctors remotely prescribe patients abortion pills — are used in 20 percent of U.S. abortions. Before Roe was overturned, only 5 percent of U.S. abortions were administered via telehealth. In states that have restricted access to abortion, chemical abortions are convenient, cheap, and rising in popularity; chemical abortions accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023, up 10 percent since 2020.
“As long as we keep seeing more states increasing restrictions, I think we will continue to see the abortion volume grow as people learn about telehealth,” Upadhyay said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone, which, when combined with misoprostol is the most common chemical abortive, in 2000.
The FDA has walked back the drug’s safety standards since, Alliance Defending Freedom lawyers say. Whereas once, a doctor was required to see a woman before, during, and after a chemical abortion, the FDA in 2021 decided that in-person consultations were “no longer necessary.” Although the FDA warns that the drug hospitalizes one in 25 women, the agency allows the drug to be distributed by mail.
Alison Norris, co-chair of #WeCount and Ohio State University College of Public Health professor, said in a statement that “even as we see the increase in abortion volume nationally, the burden on an individual living in a state with an abortion ban is enormous, especially if they need in-person abortion care.”
Presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her newly-chosen vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are expected to make abortion access a top policy priority.
Harris became the first U.S. vice president to visit an abortion clinic this year when she and Walz toured a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic in March.
Walz, who said in March that “old white men” need to learn how to better talk about abortion, signed two bills in 2023 that allowed for abortion up until birth and repealed Minnesota’s requirement that women give consent before receiving an abortion.