In the six months after the Dobbs decision, an average of 5,377 fewer abortions were provided in the U.S. each month, or 32,260 fewer abortions cumulatively.
The data comes from a new Society of Family Planning report which sought to comprehensively determine the new legal regime’s material effect. The numbers from July to December 2022 represent a drop of more than 6 percent compared to the period before the Dobbs decision was released.
“In April, before Dobbs, the total estimated number of abortions (82,450) was higher than previous years [and] is consistent with an ongoing upward trend in abortion incidence since 2017,” read the report. “Thus, the net overall declines in abortion incidence in the U.S. after Dobbs are even more striking given that there were trends of increasing abortion rates just before Dobbs.”
There were an average of 77,073 abortions per month during that half-year period. The national abortion rate decreased from 13.2 per 1,000 women of reproductive age in April 2022 to 12.3 per 1,000 women for the monthly average of abortions in the six months after the Supreme Court’s decision.
“In June, after the leaked draft opinion by Justice Alito, we saw an increase in numbers of abortions in many states, perhaps representing clinics scaling up in anticipation of changes with the Dobbs decision. In July, the first full month after the Dobbs decision, we saw severe declines in states with bans, meaningful declines in states with restrictions, and small increases in states with few legal restrictions,” explained the report. “The national number of abortions decreased again in September and October, and reached the lowest point of the six-month period in November, when we observed 9,970 fewer abortions as compared to April.”
In the states that had bans, there were an estimated 43,410 fewer abortions. This translates to a monthly average of 7,235 fewer abortions in these states.
The states with the largest decreases were Texas, which had 15,540 fewer abortions; Georgia, which had 10,930 fewer abortions; Tennessee, which had 6,560 fewer abortions; and Ohio, which had 4,920 fewer abortions. The Society of Family Planning, a pro-abortion nonprofit, noted that women in these states traveled elsewhere, delayed their abortion, or ultimately decided not to go through with it. Texas, Tennessee, and eleven other states had comprehensive bans as defined by the group. Georgia and Ohio were part of a second category of states where abortion was legal but meaningfully restricted.
In some states where abortion was already severely restricted before Dobbs, such as Missouri, post-Dobbs declines appear to be small changes, the report explained.
States with the largest increases in the total number of abortions provided compared to the baseline include Florida (7,190 more abortions), Illinois (6,840 more abortions), North Carolina (4,730 more abortions), Colorado (2,580 more abortions), and Michigan (2,490 more abortions). Some states that had restrictions in place but were closer in distance to states that banned abortion also experienced surges in number of abortions, such as Minnesota (1,820 more abortions) and Kansas (1,240 more abortions).
The group explained that the majority of states on either coast where abortion remains legal with few restrictions did not experience surges, suggesting “that many abortion seekers living in restrictive states may have traveled to other nearby states for care.”
“Nevertheless, even six months after the Court’s decision, the increases in numbers of abortions in states where abortion was permitted did not compensate for the reductions seen in states where abortion was banned,” read the report.
While the overall number of abortions decreased, abortions by telehealth providers increased from 3,610 in April 2022 (4 percent of all abortions), before the decision, to 8,540 in December (11 percent of all abortions). This change represents an increase of 137 percent in the number of abortions provided from virtual-only services, comparing April and December 2022.
Pro-life groups celebrated the hard data showing fewer abortions overall.
“The news that abortions in this country dropped by 32,260 in the six months following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision is absolutely wonderful!” explained Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, to the Catholic News Agency.
“Women are choosing life for their children,” Tobias said. “With pro-abortion governors and a Biden administration doing [everything] possible to make abortion easily accessible, pro-lifers need to do even more to help and encourage women to choose life.”
Pro-choice organizations took the opposite tack, arguing that the numbers represent a real risk for women.
“Abortion bans have already caused immeasurable harm. Bans cause extreme stress, push patients and their children into poverty, and make it more likely for patients to stay with violent partners,” wrote the organization Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health on Twitter.