Abortions Have Increased, Even for Women in States With Rigid Bans, Study Says
Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz have been covering the effects of abortion restrictions since 2019, three years before the Dobbs decision.
In nearly every state that has banned abortion, the number of women receiving abortions increased between 2020 and the end of 2023, according to the most comprehensive account of all abortions by state since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In the 13 states that enacted near-total abortion bans, the number of women receiving abortions increased in all but three, according to the study. Some women traveled to clinics in states where abortions were legal. Others ordered abortion pills from U.S. doctors online, after doctors in other states started writing prescriptions under shield laws that protect them when they provide mail-order pills to patients in states with bans.
The only states with bans where abortion fell during this period were Texas, where the decrease was small; Idaho, where it was larger; and Oklahoma, where the data showed an unusually large number of abortions in 2020.
