Latest news with #IsaacMaddow-Zimet
The Guardian
20-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
New figures shed light on US abortion travel as Trump cuts tracking research
For the second year in a row, abortion providers performed more than 1m abortions in the United States in 2024. About 155,000 people crossed state lines for abortions – roughly double the number of patients who did so in 2020, before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and paved the way for more than a dozen state-level abortion bans to take effect. These numbers, released earlier this week by the abortion rights-supporting Guttmacher Institute, have not changed much since 2023, when the US also performed more than 1m abortions and 169,000 people traveled for the procedure. This lack of change masks a deep geographical divide in the US, as a handful of states have now become major hubs for people seeking abortions. In 2024, Illinois provided roughly 35,000 abortions to out-of-state patients, while North Carolina provided 16,700. Kansas and New Mexico, which neighbor anti-abortion Texas, provided 16,100 and 12,800 abortions – the vast majority of which were to out-of-state patients. 'Travel is so incredibly costly, both for patients and for the broader support network of funds, practical support organizations and providers,' said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a Guttmacher data scientist. The sheer magnitude of the travel, he said, is 'testament to the great efforts that a lot of people are taking in order to make sure that people could access care that really they should be able to access within their own community – without necessarily expending this enormous financial and logistical cost'. As the Guttmacher report focuses on abortions provided through the formal healthcare system, it does not count self-managed abortions, which appear to be on the rise post-Roe. (Medical experts widely agree that individuals can safely end their own first-trimester pregnancies using abortion pills.) The report also does not track abortions provided to people living in states with total abortion bans, even though providers living in blue states sometimes mail abortion pills across state lines – a practice that, in recent months, has sparked heated litigation. This does not mean, researchers warned, that everybody who wants a post-Roe abortion is still able to get one. Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economics professor who has researched the impact of abortion bans, estimated that about 20-25% of people who want abortions are blocked from getting them by bans. The Guttmacher report arrived days after the Trump administration effectively demolished the CDC team responsible for government reports on abortion provision in the United States, which are known as 'abortion surveillance' reports. These cuts have alarmed researchers. 'If we can't measure outcomes, we can't do science,' Myers said. 'My concern is that this work fundamentally relies on the ability to track public health outcomes, and if we aren't tracking them, we don't know what's happening to people. We don't know what's happening in their lives. We don't know the effect of policies and interventions.' In addition to the CDC and Guttmacher, just one other group – #WeCount, a research project by the Society of Family Planning – regularly collects nationwide data on abortion incidence. The groups use different methods to collect data, so the CDC's annual report on the topic has long been less comprehensive than the post-Roe reports issued by Guttmacher and #WeCount. A number of states – including California, a haven for abortion rights – do not provide information to the federal government about the abortions performed within their borders. The CDC report also lags behind the Guttmacher and #WeCount reports; its most recent report, issued in November, counted abortions performed in 2022. The CDC report does include information about abortion patients' demographic backgrounds and the gestational age of their pregnancies, which can serve as a critical fact-check in heated debates around abortion. Anti-abortion activists, for example, often condemn abortions that take place later on in pregnancy, but the 2022 CDC report found that only about 1.1% of all abortions take place at or after 21 weeks' gestation. 'Abortion surveillance can be used to asses changes in clinical practice patterns over time,' a former employee from the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health said in a text. 'Without this report, we are losing the ability to track these changes.' Notably, the move to ax the researchers behind the CDC report appears to run counter to Project 2025, a famous playbook of conservative policies. Project 2025 urged the federal government to dramatically expand the CDC's 'abortion surveillance' by cutting funds to states that did not provide the CDC with information about 'exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother's state of residence, and by what method'. It also suggested that the CDC collect statistics on miscarriages, stillbirths and 'treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy)'. These proposals alarmed researchers and raised concerns about patients' data privacy, especially given the fact that abortion remains a deeply controversial procedure. But given the turbulence of the Trump administration, experts are not sure whether another agency will ultimately take up Project 2025's recommendations. Maddow-Zimet said he doesn't 'think that we're necessarily any less concerned than we were before about the possibility of these kind of data mandates going into effect and/or using the data in appropriate ways to either make providers ask patients questions they wouldn't have otherwise asked, that are very stigmatizing, or potentially put providers at risk'.
Axios
15-04-2025
- Health
- Axios
Abortions in Florida plunged more than in any other state in 2024, new data shows
The number of clinician-provided abortions in Florida declined last year more than in any other state, according to a new analysis. Why it matters: The data shows just how much the six-week ban that went into effect last year limited abortion access for Floridians and residents of Southern states who once relied on the Sunshine State as a haven for access. Zoom in: The number of clinician-provided abortions dropped from about 85,770 in 2023 to 73,710 last year, per data compiled by Guttmacher, a research group that supports reproductive rights. The drop-off is especially apparent after the six-week ban went into effect May 1. In the first half of 2024, clinicians provided nearly 45,000 abortions. That decreased to 29,000 in the latter half of the year. Zoom out: The share of patients traveling to Florida from out of state dropped from about 11% in 2023 to 6% last year. Looking at the last half of 2024, that share was down to 2%. Virginia likely absorbed patients who would have otherwise traveled to Florida, the analysis notes. Out-of-state abortion patients in that state spiked by about 4,300. It's the second closest state to Florida that provides abortions beyond six weeks. The closest, North Carolina, has a 72-hour waiting period that can make travel logistics more complicated. What they're saying: "Florida has a magnified impact," Guttmacher data scientist Isaac Maddow-Zimet told Axios. The big picture: The number of abortions provided in states without total bans, including Florida, increased slightly from about 1,033,740 in 2023 to 1,038,090 in 2024. That includes abortions provided at health clinics and via telehealth. "The overall stability in the number of abortions in states without total bans continued despite shifts in policy that have increased obstacles to accessing this care in many states," the analysis notes. That's largely because of help from abortion funds, which provide funding for the procedure and practical costs like travel and childcare. Yes, but: Abortion advocates are concerned about the long-term sustainability of that support, Maddow-Zimet said. Abortion funds have struggled to meet the demand as more states enact restrictions. And without Florida as an option, residents here and across the south have to travel farther than they ever have. That's a bigger burden for the patient that also typically costs more. The bottom line: "With each one of these bans that goes into effect," Maddow-Zimet said, "it really narrows people's options for care, and it makes the cost increase astronomically."
