At least 10,000 fewer legal abortions occurred in the U.S. in the two months following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to a report by FiveThirtyEight.
The study, compiled by the pro-abortion non-profit #WeCount, part of the Society for Family Planning (SFP), noted that 10,570 fewer abortions took place in July and August than estimates from before the overturn of Roe.
The data compared the number of legal abortions across each state from April through August to illustrate the difference before and after the Supreme Court’s ruling. States that enacted more restrictive abortion laws in the wake of the decision saw a drop of over 22,000 abortions, while states that did not saw an aggregate increase of about 12,000.
New data, exclusively shared with @FiveThirtyEight, indicates that at least 10,000 women were unable to get an abortion in July and August because of Dobbs. https://t.co/lJ9xQZ1FU1 pic.twitter.com/n5US9KObQ9
— Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux (@ameliatd) October 30, 2022
“In July, the first full month after Dobbs, in states that had decreases in abortion access, an estimated 9,990 fewer people obtained abortions in those states, as compared to April. In August, 12,380 fewer people obtained abortions in states with declines, as compared to April,” SFP found. “Overall, a total of 22,370 fewer people obtained an abortion in states with declines in care.”
A significant trend discovered in the data is that the number of abortions climbed by around 12,000 (11%) in states where the act remained legal and without new restrictions. The group observed this could imply that almost half of women unable to obtain abortions in their home state traveled to another state to get one.
The states with the highest increases by percent included North Carolina, Kansas, Colorado, and Illinois. Texas showed the greatest drop, with only ten abortions recorded in the two months following the court’s ruling.
In addition, a total of 10 states recorded zero abortions during the two-month period. For states like Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, abortion has ended for nearly all cases during the period of the study. Mississippi was the state that brought the case to the Supreme Court, which led to the overturn of Roe.
Overall, 13 states with trigger laws ban most or all abortions. The list includes Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
Pro-life organizations have celebrated the news as a win for their movement.
“We are celebrating the fact that at least 10,000 babies have a chance at life,” said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America. “It’s a sign of course correction and of ordinary Americans finally having a say in how many lives are tragically lost to the tragedy of abortion.”
A growing concern in the report was mentioned regarding abortions by virtual-only clinics, which represented only 3% of all abortions in April. By August, 4.7% of abortions occurred by this method.
The #WeCount data was obtained directly from abortion clinics, hospitals, and telemedicine providers that performed 82% of all abortions before the court’s decision. The research used adjustments based on state data and time trends to estimate the missing data.
