According to a study, about 5,000 fewer abortions are performed each month in the US after the overturning of Roe v Wade.
There were a total of 77,000 abortions per month from July to December last year, up from 82,000 before the landmark ruling, according to the pro-abortion rights group Family Planning Association.
Since a ban has been in effect since June 2022, people seeking abortions have been forced to travel long distances to another state that allows abortions, or order abortion pills online to be delivered by mail.
The report comes amid a groundbreaking legal battle over access to the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone, which is likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.
There were about 5,000 fewer legal abortions per month on average than in the months before the June Dobbs v Jackson ruling — a drop of about six percent
The Texas ruling against the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone is likely to have major implications for access to abortion in the US, even in states where abortion remains legal
More than a dozen states have restricted access to abortions after the overthrow of Roe V Wade
The June Supreme Court decision overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade case, which guaranteed access to abortion to the point where the fetus could survive independently outside the womb.
That decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, returned the power to make abortion policies to the states, paving the way for a patchwork of restrictions.
After Roe was expelled, 13 state bans on the procedure went into effect immediately, dropping abortions in those Republican-led states by more than 95 percent through December.
There were spikes in some states bordering others with restrictions on the books, including Minnesota and Kansas, suggesting women had to travel across state lines for health care.
WeCount’s report used the abortion rate of 83 percent of clinics, hospitals and telehealth providers in the US. Researchers behind the report considered data on all abortions performed by clinics, private medical offices, hospitals and virtual providers who could prescribe abortion medications via telehealth to send through the mail.
The group compared data on the number of abortions from April through May prior to the Dobbs decision in June with data from the months following the decision from July through December 2022.
For those places that did not provide data, WeCount estimated the changes based on historical data and nearby clinics.
In states without abortion bans, the picture of legality varies widely.
Different states have enforced different laws. For example, Georgia has banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Despite being less strict than a full ban, Georgia’s abortion rate decline was the second highest in the U.S. with nearly 11,000 fewer abortions after Dobbs after Texas, which saw more than 15,500 fewer abortions.
Florida, which is currently on its way to tightening abortion limits from 15 weeks to just six weeks, saw the largest increase in the number of abortions performed.
The report gives no reason for this, but it is noteworthy that Florida has long been seen as a lifeline for women in the South, many of whom had been living in abortion deserts before the June Dobbs decision. In a sea of strict restrictions on access to abortion in deep Southern states, desperate women were more likely to turn to nearby Florida for care.
But states in the Northeast and on the West Coast, where abortion is largely legal, didn’t see those same increases.
The total number of abortions performed in the US after Dobbs has fluctuated from month to month, but has always been lower than April 2022.
The national abortion rate fell from 13.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age in the month of April to 12.3 per 1,000 women for the monthly average of abortions in the six months following the Dobbs decision.
While the number of abortions decreased overall, the number of abortions by telehealth providers who could prescribe abortion-inducing pills increased from more than 3,600 in April 2022 to more than 8,500 in December.
Telehealth providers have been able to prescribe a two-drug regimen consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol for women to take in the privacy of their homes to induce a miscarriage.
Medical abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions performed due to its ease of use and safety profile.
More than 5.6 million women have successfully attempted abortion since the drug’s approval 23 years ago, according to the FDA, and complications occur in less than 0.3 percent of patients.
But Texas Judge Kacsmaryk, appointed by President Trump in 2017 and known as a staunch Christian conservative, sided with anti-abortion advocates who argued that the FDA circumvented safety guidelines when approving mifepristone.
Judge Kacsmaryk said in his ruling, “But here the FDA acquiesced in its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its legal duty — based on plainly flawed reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions.”
The report comes in the wake of dueling court rulings over the legality of mifepristone, one of two abortion-inducing drugs that now account for more than half of the procedures taking place in the US.
The above shows the estimated travel time to abortion clinics now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned across America, with an average of about 100 minutes. The 18 highlighted states have placed restrictions on abortion or banned it outright
The controversial ruling was criticized by the pharmaceutical industry in a surprising show of unity on the issue of access to abortion.
Abortion travel times have tripled and sales of foreign termination pills have skyrocketed since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The study said: ‘People of color and people who work to make ends meet are most affected.
‘Those who cannot overcome travel barriers are probably those with the least socio-economic resources; even small drops in the abortion rate still translate into huge consequences for the lives of those affected.”
The data ran through Dec. 31, during which time the following 13 states had banned abortion almost without exception: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin .
Access to mifepristone is now at risk as the federal government appeals last week’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to suspend the drug’s 2000 FDA approval.
The immediate future of mifepristone is now in the hands of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Currently, the drug is withdrawn from the market on Friday, but the appeals court could issue an order to allow its use for the time being.