Latest news with #SocietyofFamilyPlanning
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
More Americans are using online-only clinics to have abortions, data shows
The number of abortions in the U.S. keeps rising with more Americans turning to online-only clinics for medication abortions, according to data released Tuesday. In-clinic abortion in states without bans on the procedure have remained relatively stable in recent years. There were 1,038,100 clinician-provided abortions in states without abortion bans last year, an increase of less than 1 percent from 2023, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, reproductive rights group. Meanwhile, the portion of abortions in those states that were provided through an online-only clinic has gone up, rising to 14 percent in 2024 from 10 percent in 2023, which translates to an increase of about 40,000 abortions, according to the nonprofit. The number of medication abortions accessed through an online-only clinic is 'almost certainly higher,' the report notes, since the survey did not take into account the abortions provided in states with bans on the procedure under a shield law provision. Overall, the country's abortion numbers have remained stable despite numerous state bans on abortions that have been rolled out since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. There are currently 12 states with total abortion bans in effect. Iowa and Florida enacted bans at six weeks of gestation last year that have 'drastically narrowed' the options for abortion access among in-state and out-of-state residents. Abortion shield laws have been enacted in states where abortion is legal to protect patients and health care providers from civil, criminal and professional consequences for providing abortion care to people who live in states with abortion restrictions. At least 34,500 medication abortions were provided in the first half of 2024 via a shield law in states where abortion is banned, according to the Society of Family Planning. The increased use of online-only clinics could be linked to the roughly 9 percent decrease in Americans traveling out of state to receive an abortion. About 155,000 people crossed state lines for an abortion in 2024, and the year before roughly 169,000 people traveled out of state to receive abortion care, according to the report. 'Where it is available, telehealth provision of abortion can significantly mitigate many of the barriers that patients face when seeking abortion services, such as lowering the costs and time needed to travel to a provider,' a policy analysis released along with the survey reads. While travel for abortion care has dropped, travel to states with less restrictive abortion policies remains a 'critical pathway' for those seeking abortion care in states with bans or severe restrictions on the procedure, the survey notes. Especially since the overwhelming majority of abortions are still performed in clinics The four states that offered the most abortions to out-of-state residents in 2024 were the same as in 2023: Illinois, North Carolina, Kansas and New Mexico. Abortions for out-of-state residents made up 69 percent of all abortions performed in New Mexico in 2024. Illinois provided abortion care to 35,000 out-of-state residents last year or 39 percent of all abortions performed in the state. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Women still access abortion in Texas despite stict laws that prohibit them, per SXSW panel
AUSTIN (KXAN) – State and national abortion rights leaders took to a South By Southwest panel Sunday afternoon to discuss ways women continue to access abortions in Texas despite the state having some of the strictest laws in the country. Among the women on the panel was former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, now a senior adviser to Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, who said pregnancy can be a dangerous condition when women do not have access to life-saving abortion care. 'We've seen that time and time again since the abortion bans have been in place in Texas,' she told KXAN. 'We know that sepsis rates have increased by 50% in our state and that our maternal mortality rates and our infant mortality rates are skyrocketing.' Even though laws that prohibit nearly all abortions have been on the books in Texas since 2022, thousands of Texans are still able to terminate pregnancies each year. 'The panel today is talking about how, in the face of abortion bans in Texas and elsewhere, people are still able to access care,' Davis said. 'People are leaving the state to get the care that they need in states that do provide it,' she said. '[Others] are able to avail themselves of telehealth medicine and get a prescription for abortion medication if they're in the weeks prior to their 13th week of pregnancy.' #WeCount, a project from the Society of Family Planning, reported that around 2,800 Texas women monthly in the first six months of 2024 acquired abortion medications, like Mifepristone, through telehealth medicine. 'Of course, there's a lawsuit that is trying to do away with abortion medication altogether,' Davis said. In January, a Texas judge ruled that three states could move ahead with another attempt to roll back federal rules and make it more challenging for people to access mifepristone in the U.S. Additionally, one bill filed in the Texas House of Representatives aims to add criminal and civil penalties for providing abortion-inducing drugs in Texas. Despite these efforts, Davis said she believes a majority support more access to abortion procedures than is allowed currently in Texas. She encouraged SXSW attendees Sunday to make their voices heard at election time. 'The only way we can change policies is to change policymakers. It's that simple,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
04-02-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
New York adds protections for doctors who send abortion pills out of state
New York state moved to increase protections for abortion providers who mail pills out of state, days after a Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York doctor for allegedly doing just that. New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, on Monday signed into law a bill that permits doctors to request that their names be left off prescriptions for abortion pills. Instead, they can use the names of their medical practices. 'In deeply conservative states, they've weaponized the courts against providers, in state and out,' Hochul said in a press conference. She continued: 'Other states, they want to target, harass, scare, intimidate doctors and patients. That may be okay in a place like Louisiana, maybe Indiana. But those are not our values in the state of New York. No.' The new law arrives in the wake of intensified efforts to prosecute providers who use telemedicine to prescribe abortions to residents of states with abortion bans. These providers operate under the auspices of 'shield laws', which have been enacted in a number of blue states since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. They generally aim to protect abortion providers by refusing to comply with red-state requests to prosecute them. Shield laws have proven vital to maintaining abortion access in the US post-Roe. Between April and June of last year, providers offered nearly 10,000 abortions each month through shield laws, according to data from #WeCount, a research project by the Society of Family Planning. However, shield laws have gone largely untried in courts – and red states are now aiming to put them to the test. Late last year, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued Dr Margaret Carpenter, a New York-based provider, who allegedly prescribed abortion pills to a 20-year-old Texan. Carpenter is also the subject of last week's indictment by a Louisiana grand jury, which alleges she prescribed a pill in that state. Louisiana law enforcement also indicted the mother of a minor who was allegedly given the pill. On Monday, Hochul vowed: 'Never, under any circumstances, will I sign an extradition agreement that sends our doctor into harm's way, to be prosecuted as a criminal for simply following her oath.' Louisiana discovered Carpenter's name, Hochul said, because it was on the prescription bottle. 'After today, that will no longer happen,' she said.
