Women in the United States had more abortions in the first three months of 2024 than they had before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a research issued on Wednesday – an increase likely due to the efforts made by Democratic-controlled states to increase access to abortion.
According to the quarterly #WeCount report for the Society of Family Planning, which promotes access to abortion, a key factor contributing to the surge is that some blue states passed rules protecting physicians who utilize telemedicine to visit patients in areas where abortion is illegal.
According to the poll, abortion rates dropped to almost nil in states that forbid the procedure at any point during a woman’s pregnancy and by roughly half in those that only permit it after six weeks, when most women are not even aware that they are carrying a child. With a few exceptions, abortion is illegal in 14 states, and it is prohibited in 4 more after about six weeks of pregnancy.
The number increased in areas where abortion is still permitted up to a later point in pregnancy, particularly in states that border those that have outlawed it, such Illinois, Kansas, and New Mexico.
According to the analysis, in those states, there would have been an additional 9,900 abortions each month and 208,000 abortions overall if the post-Dobbs prohibitions had not been implemented. In Illinois, the numbers were up over 2,600 each month; in Virginia, they were up around 1,300; in Kansas, they were up 1,200; and in New Mexico, they were up over 500.
About 10,000 patients in areas that ban or restrict telehealth abortions received prescriptions for abortion pills from doctors in states with legislation protecting medical providers in March, accounting for roughly 10% of all abortions performed in the United areas. Laws protecting doctors who provide abortion drugs via telemedicine began to take effect last year in several states with Democratic leaders.
In comparison to the 84,000 abortions recorded in the two months prior to Dobbs, the survey’s first three months of this year saw an average of just about 99,000 abortions per month. For the first time since the survey’s inception, more than 100,000 abortions nationwide were recorded in a single month in January.
Less than three months remain until the November elections, which will determine whether or not state-level abortion laws are upheld by voters in certain states.
