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Abortion numbers rise in US although fewer women travel out of state

The findings were released by a pro-choice group.

By contributor Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press
Published
Supreme Court Abortion
Abortion-rights activists and anti-abortion demonstrators rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Fewer people crossed US state lines to obtain abortions in 2024 than a year earlier, a new survey has found, although the total number continued to rise.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research organisation that supports abortion, estimates in a report that the overall number of clinician-provided abortions in states where it is legal rose by less than 1% from 2023 to 2024.

But the number of people crossing state lines for abortions dropped by about 9%.

The report, based on a monthly survey of providers, is the latest look at how the abortion landscape in the US has evolved since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022 in a ruling that eliminated a national constitutional right to abortion and opened the door to state bans and restrictions.

Guttmacher estimates there were 1.04 million abortions in 2024, up about 1% from its total the previous year.

Multiple studies have found that the total number of abortions in the US has risen since Dobbs, despite some states implementing bans.

Twelve states currently enforce abortion bans with limited exceptions at all stages of pregnancy.

Four more have bans that kick in after about six weeks, which is before many women know they’re pregnant.

Guttmacher’s tally does not capture self-managed abortions such as people obtaining abortion pills from community networks, foreign pharmacies or through telehealth from medical providers in states that have laws intended to protect those who send pills into places with bans.

There is a court battle over the constitutionality of such laws.

But another survey found that the number of telehealth pills being sent into states with bans has been growing and accounted for about one in 10 abortions in the US by the summer of 2024.

Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at Guttmacher, said even though the number of abortions is up, it is likely some people who would like to end their pregnancies are not able to.

“We know that some people are accessing abortion through telehealth,” he said.

“And we know it’s not an option for everybody.”

The number of people crossing state lines for abortions dropped to about 155,000 from nearly 170,000.

The year-to-year impact varies by state.

For instance, about one in eight abortions in Florida in the first half of 2023 were provided to people coming from out of state.

By the second half of 2024, when a ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect, only about one in 50 were for people from another state.

More people travelled to states including Virginia and New York after the Florida law took hold.

A drop in people travelling to Minnesota could be linked to abortions being offered again in clinics in Wisconsin.

Most abortions in Kansas are provided to people from elsewhere and the number grew as clinic capacity expanded.

A working paper released in March provided different insight into the impact of the bans.

It found that birth rates rose from 2020 to 2023 in counties farther from abortion clinics.

Rates rose faster for Black and Hispanic women, those with lower education levels, and people who are unmarried.

“The takeaway is that distance still matters,” said Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economic professor and one of the authors of the working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“It really wasn’t obvious that that would be the case.”

“These bans are more than just policies; these are direct attacks on bodily autonomy,” said Regina Davis Moss, president and chief executive of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.

The bans also exacerbate the huge disparities in maternal mortality for black women in the US, she said.

Black women died around the time of childbirth at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women in 2023.

“We’re going to be faced with increasing numbers of births, which is going to increase the maternal mortality rate, the infant mortality rate and inequities in care,” she said.

“It’s very upsetting and sad.”

Bree Wallace, director of case management at the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund in Florida, which helps with the logistics and costs of abortions, said people who consider getting an abortion don’t always know their options.

“Many people don’t know their choices or think that it’s just not possible to go out of state,” she said.

“A lot of people hear ‘ban’ or ‘six-week ban’ in their state and that’s it.”

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