U.S. Abortions Increase in Year After Supreme Court Decision

After the Supreme Court took away guaranteed abortion rights in June 2022, anti-abortion groups hoped – and abortion-rights advocates feared – that access to abortion would be so severely restricted that women would abandon it as an option and continue with their unplanned or unwanted pregnancies.

But in the roughly one year since the politics-shaking ruling was handed down, the number of abortions performed in the United States actually increased by 2,200, according to a report released Tuesday.

The study by the Society of Family Planning, a group that supports access to abortion, found that abortions indeed did decrease dramatically in states that banned or greatly limited the ability to get an abortion.

But the drop-off was more than made up in states that became havens for women seeking abortions, according to the report, called #WeCount.

The average number of abortions in America per month was 82,115 in April and May 2022, before the high court handed down its June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In the months following the ruling, the monthly average has been 82,298. That translates into an overall increase of 183 abortions per month, on average, or 2,200 total, the report said.

For example, the number of abortions performed in Alabama averaged 635 in the few months before July 2022, when a ban on abortion went into effect in the Yellowhammer State. After that, no abortions were reported, the group found.

Meanwhile, Illinois has become a “surge state,” with the number of abortions gong from a monthly pre-Dobbs average of 5,510 to a post-ruling average of

7,302 a month, the report says.

Abortion has remained legal in Illinois since the Dobbs ruling. In 2019, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law saying that reproductive health care, including abortion, was a fundamental right in Illinois. In January, Pritzker signed another law extending legal protections and access to out-of-state patients traveling to Illinois for abortions. Among other things, the new law says Illinois will not comply with subpoenas, summons or extradition requests from states seeking to punish women who travel elsewhere for abortions.

The data is based on abortions done at clinics and hospitals or through telehealth services. It does not include “self-managed” abortions, including women who acquire medical abortion pills through the mail or use other measures to terminate their pregnancies.

The #WeCount study noted that abortions have been increasing in America since 2017, so the overall increase was not a surprise.

But the numbers also confirm what abortion rights activists have been arguing for decades: that abortion bans won’t stop abortions from occurring and will drive women to find the procedure by other means.

Prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing abortion rights, women would have illegal procedures that were often unsafe, causing infertility, illness or even death.

The current situation, where America is divided into drastically different environments for abortion access, means that many women now are forced to spend the time and money to travel – if they have those resources available – to get an abortion that would have been easily accessible earlier last year, says #WeCount co-chairperson Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.

“What actually happened was that abortions plummeted to zero in some states, while increasing to meet the demand in others,” Upadhyay told reporters. “It’s leading to the complete disruption of health care” in patients’ lives, she added.

Amber Gavin, vice president of advocacy and operations at the abortion clinic A Woman’s Choice, said abortion rights groups were working to help pay for patients to travel out of state for the procedure, said many clinics – particularly in states bordering complete-ban states – are “at capacity” and won’t be able to accommodate the influx of patients as more states ban or restrict abortion.

Abortion rights advocates had hoped to expand access in Georgia, where abortion is not permitted after six weeks of pregnancy. The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday set back that effort, affirming the six-week rule while it is challenged on privacy grounds in a trial court.

“Today’s victory represents one more step towards ending this litigation and ensuring the lives of Georgians at all ages are protected,” Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, said in a statement.

With much of the South a desert for abortion access, more women will travel to the border states for the procedure, advocates argue.

“What we’re doing is not sustainable for anyone,” said Megan Jeyifo, executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, which provides financial and other assistance for women crossing state lines to get abortions.

Abortion was a central issue in the 2022 midterms and will be on the ballot next month as well. Ohio voters will decide on a referendum that would establish abortion rights. Should the measure succeed, the Buckeye State will become the seventh state and the fourth GOP-run state to enshrine abortion rights or reject anti-abortion referendums since the Dobbs ruling.

In Virginia, all seats in the closely divided state legislature are on the ballot. A Republican hold of control of the House of Delegates and a flip of the state senate would almost certainly result in new restrictions on abortion.