New study indicates abortions increased in states bordering those with bans
#WeCount collects data nationally that shows trends in abortion care
The number of abortions performed in the United States increased during the year that followed the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The data was collected by #WeCount, a national abortion reporting effort that aims to capture the shifts in abortion access on a state-by-state basis following the Dobbs decision. To understand the effects of the Dobbs decision on abortion access in states across the country, they compared abortion volume data from April and May 2022, as the pre-Dobbs period, to data from July 2022 through June 2023, as the post-Dobbs period.
They found that
In the year since the Dobbs decision, compared to the average monthly number of abortions observed in the pre-Dobbs period of April and May 2022, there were 2,200 cumulative more abortions during the 12 months from July 2022 to June 2023 (Table 2).
In the two months before Dobbs, the average monthly number of abortions provided by clinicians in the US was 82,115, while in the 12 months after Dobbs, the average monthly number of abortions was 82,298 (Table 2).
The most significant increase in the monthly average number of abortions occurred in March 2023, with 10,565 more abortions than in the pre-Dobbs period (Table 3).
The increases in many states mask drastic declines in states with bans.
The number of abortions nationally has varied month-to-month, with the most significant decline in November 2022, with 8,185 fewer abortions (Table 3).
Abortion has been increasing in the US since 2017, and abortion rates continued to increase up to the Dobbs decision. Thus, the drop in states that lost access in the US after Dobbs is even more striking, given that the need for abortion appeared to be increasing.
States that experienced declines in the number of abortions after Dobbs were also the states with the most restrictions pre-Dobbs. Thus, the number of abortions in the months leading up to Dobbs likely underrepresents the actual need for abortion care.
Abortions provided by virtual-only clinics continued to increase in the post-Dobbs period, increasing from a monthly average of 4,045 abortions before the Dobbs decision (nearly 5% of all abortions) to an average of 6,950 abortions per month in the 12 months following the Dobbs decision (greater than 8% of all abortions). This change represents an increase of 72% in the number of abortions provided from virtual-only services, comparing post to pre-Dobbs (Table 4).
The number of states where abortion has been completely banned increased from 9 states in July 2022 to 14 in June 2023. States where abortion was prohibited in July 2022 included Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Kentucky and Louisiana banned abortion in August, and Idaho and Tennessee did so in September 2022. North Dakota banned abortion in April 2023.
States with the most significant cumulative increases in the total number of abortions provided by a clinician during the 12 months after Dobbs, referred to in this report as “surge states,” include Illinois (21,500), Florida (20,460), North Carolina (11,830), California (8,810) New Mexico (8,640). The increases vary by month in each state. Many states where abortion remains legal with few restrictions, especially in the Northeast and Northwest, and especially when not bordering restrictive states, did not experience surges in abortions. We observed more significant increases in conditions close to states with bans, even if those receiving states had abortion restrictions such as mandated in-person counseling and waiting periods.
The rest of the report is here.
