Blitz Bureau
THE number of women getting abortions in the U.S. actually went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a report released on August 7 found, reflecting the lengths that Democratic-controlled states went to expand access.
Use of telemedicine
A major reason for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states enacted laws to protect doctors who use telemedicine to see patients in places that have abortion bans, according to the quarterly #WeCount report for the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion access. The data comes ahead of November elections in which abortion-rights supporters hope the issue will drive voters to the polls.
In some places, voters will have a chance to enshrine or reject statelevel abortion protections. The fallout from the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has remade the way abortion works across the country.
The #WeCount data, which has been collected in a monthly survey since April 2022, shows how those providing and seeking abortion have adapted to changing laws.
The survey found that the number of abortions fell to nearly zero in states that ban abortion in all stages of pregnancy and declined by about half in places that ban it after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Fourteen states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and four others bar it after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Numbers went up in places where abortion remains legal until further into pregnancy — and especially in states such as Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico, which border states with bans. The report estimates that if not for the post-Dobbs bans, there would have been about 9,900 more abortions per month — and 208,000 total since — in those states.
Abortion pills
The numbers were up by more than 2,600 per month in Illinois, about 1,300 in Virginia, 1,200 in Kansas and more than 500 in New Mexico. Abortion pills and telemedicine play a key role. In March, doctors in states with laws to protect medical providers used telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills to nearly 10,000 patients in states with bans or restrictions on abortion by telehealth — accounting for about 1 in 10 abortions in the U.S.
