Abortions Keep Increasing in the U.S., Data Show

Yahoo

15-04-2025

Faith Halstead chants along with other protesters and activists near the Florida State Capitol where Florida State Senators voted to pass a proposed six-week abortion ban in Tallahassee, Florida, on April 3, 2023. Credit - The Washington Post—Getty Images
The number of abortions provided in most of the U.S. increased slightly in 2024 from the year before, according to new data released on April 15.
The research was conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, which studies and supports sexual and reproductive health and rights. The organization uses both a statistical model and survey responses from providers to estimate the number of abortions provided by clinicians in states without near-total bans for its Monthly Abortion Provision Study. The data released on April 15 show that nearly 1,038,100 abortions were provided in 2024 across all states without near-total bans—a less than 1% increase from 2023 to 2024.
While that number is relatively steady compared to the year before, researchers noted that the finding 'masked substantial variability across individual states,' with some states experiencing significant decreases and others seeing notable increases. For instance, there were roughly 12,100 fewer abortions provided in Florida in 2024 than in 2023, which researchers attributed to the state implementing a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a policy that went into effect in May 2024. Similarly, South Carolina provided about 3,500 fewer abortions in 2024 than in 2023. Researchers attributed this to the state's six-week ban, which was upheld by the state Supreme Court in August 2023.
At the same time, researchers found that the number of abortions provided in Wisconsin increased from about 1,300 in 2023 to about 6,100 in 2024—an increase of 388%. Abortion access in the state became largely unavailable after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 until late 2023, when a Wisconsin judge ruled that an 1849 law that had been interpreted as a ban didn't make abortion illegal. Arizona, California, Kansas, Ohio, and Virginia also saw significant increases in the number of abortions provided in 2024 compared to the year before.
'What happens in one state affects what happens in other states,' says Isaac Maddow-Zimet, data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute and the project lead for the Monthly Abortion Provision Study. He notes that while Florida saw a sharp decline in the number of abortions provided between 2023 and 2024, Virginia, which allows abortions until about 26 weeks of pregnancy, saw a significant increase. In part, he says, that's because people in Florida 'were traveling to Virginia to access care.'
The data also reveal that about 155,100 people traveled across state lines for an abortion in 2024, accounting for about 15% of all abortions provided in states without near-total bans. That's a slight decrease from 2023, when roughly 169,700 people crossed state lines, representing about 16% of abortions in states without near-total bans. Still, the number of people who traveled across state lines for an abortion in 2024 is nearly double the number who did so in 2020, before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, according to Maddow-Zimet.
'[Travel is] still a major way that people are accessing care, despite the many barriers that accompany it, and it's still extremely elevated compared to historical patterns,' he says.
It's not yet clear why travel for abortion declined slightly from 2023 to 2024, but he speculates that more patients in states with near-total abortion bans may be receiving abortion pills in the mail via telehealth rather than having to travel across state lines. Another explanation, he says, could be dwindling resources to support travel.
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'Abortion funds saw big increases in donations immediately post-Dobbs, and then really saw that drop off, and they've only had to deal with an increasing amount of need,' Maddow-Zimet says.
Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved in the new research, says that the slight increase in abortions in 2024 is consistent with data from other sources (including WeCount, an abortion tracking effort that she co-chairs.) While a limitation of the Guttmacher Institute's research is that it doesn't include data from states with near-total abortion bans, she says, it illustrates trends in out-of-state travel for abortion care.
'That's a huge contribution to our understanding of what's happening with abortion access right now,' Upadhyay says.
Familiar states were at the top when it came to the number of abortions provided to out-of-state residents: Illinois, North Carolina, Kansas, and New Mexico. Illinois, which allows abortion until fetal viability, provided the highest number of abortions to out-of-state residents in 2024, at about 35,000 abortions, which accounted for 39% of all abortions provided in the state. Meanwhile, Kansas, which allows abortion until about 22 weeks of pregnancy, provided roughly 16,100 abortions to out-of-state residents, but that accounted for the majority of abortions provided in the state—71%.
That's in part due to their geographical proximity to states that have near-total bans, as well as efforts among abortion providers and some state governments to make abortion more accessible, according to Maddow-Zimet. Illinois, for instance, is 'the closest point of access' for many people living in Southern states that have near-total abortion bans and are surrounded by states with restrictive policies, he says.
Similarly, Maddow-Zimet says that New Mexico (which doesn't have a gestational limit on abortion) and Kansas see many patients from Texas, which has banned abortion in nearly all situations.
North Carolina is also the closest state for many people living in states with restrictive abortion laws, such as Florida. North Carolina has banned abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy and has a 72-hour waiting period to get an abortion.
'That means that you have to stay multiple days or might have to travel twice, and so it's really remarkable that people are still traveling to North Carolina to access care,' Maddow-Zimet says. 'It speaks to the amount of need there is.'
The number of abortions in states without near-total bans that were provided by online-only clinics increased from 10% in 2023 to 14% in 2024, though the researchers note that the national number is likely even higher. Upadhyay says she thinks this is a trend that will likely continue as people learn more about medication abortion, which can be prescribed via telehealth. Previous research from the Guttmacher Institute has found that medication abortion is the most common method of abortion in the U.S.
Maddow-Zimet says 2024 was a year that saw significant changes in state abortion laws—both to expand and restrict access to care. 'There's really a bifurcated policy landscape where we have a lot of efforts on one side to increase access to care,' he says, and, on the other, 'an enormous amount of effort to make care more and more difficult to access.'
'We absolutely see those trends continuing,' he says.
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