Data indicates that abortions are plummeting in the wake of abortion bans that went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Between July 2022 and March 2023, there were 24,290 fewer abortions than in the months previous, according to Five Thirty Eight. In states which restricted abortion that number rose to 93,575.
Abortions in states where it remained mostly legal rose by 69,285. Some analysts attribute the data to the fact that many women traveled from states with restrictive abortion laws to those with more liberal laws. (RELATED: Catholic Hospitals Are Performing Transgender Surgeries And Abortions: REPORT)
“But a significant number of people are trapped and can’t get out of places like Texas,” economics professor at Middlebury College Caitlin Myers, who reviewed the data, said. “And for the people who are traveling, we’re talking about enormous distances. Some people are likely getting delayed into the second trimester.”
BREAKING new data from @FiveThirtyEight:
There were almost 94,000 fewer abortions in states that implemented bans post-Dobbs, just between July and March.
Almost 100k affected and that’s not even the full year. https://t.co/BXJqnIBj6a pic.twitter.com/87yJbBRfmM
— Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux (@ameliatd) June 15, 2023
Even with the increases in abortions in states with liberal laws, the number of total abortion still decreased nation-wide. Those who do get abortion in other states have to go endure significantly higher costs and inconvenience.
“It’s important to not just look at the numbers and think, oh these people are getting abortions — we have to consider everything they’re going through to get these abortions,” Ushma Upadhyay, a professor and public health social scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, said.
Planned Parenthood of Illinois announced in June that abortion increased by 54% since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The clinic reported that almost a quarter of the abortions they administered came from out-of-state patients, with women traveling to the clinic from 34 different states.