A study shows women in the US are getting around state bans by using telehealth to obtain abortion pills.
Women in the United States who live in states that have banned abortions are still getting them at a similar rate compared to before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, according to a new study.
Women are travelling to other states for the procedure and increasingly using telehealth to have abortion pills mailed to them according to a #WeCount report, released on Tuesday by the Society of Family Planning that advocates for abortion access.
“The abortion bans are not eliminating the need for abortion,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a University of California public health social scientist and a co-chair of the #WeCount survey. “People are jumping over these hurdles because they have to,” she added.
The #WeCount study created a snapshot by surveying abortion trends just before Roe was overturned. It found quick changes right after the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson ruling that ended the national right to abortion, putting the issue into the hands of the states.
The number of abortions in states with bans at all stages of pregnancy fell to near zero. It also plummeted in states where bans kick in around six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they are pregnant.
But nationally the numbers are different – about the same level or slightly higher than before the ruling. The study estimates nearly 98,000 abortions occurred each month in the first half of 2024, up from the 81,000 monthly from April through December 2022 and 88,000 in 2023.
In fact, #WeCount survey found women in states with bans throughout pregnancy were getting abortions in similar numbers as they were in 2020.
It shows that women are working around the bans and increasingly choosing telehealth prescribers. Those providers got a boost when some Democratic-controlled states last year began implementing laws to protect them from prosecution.
A major provider of the telehealth pills is the Massachusetts Abortion Access Project. Co-founder Angel Foster said the group prescribed to about 500 patients a month, mostly in states with bans, since it launched in September 2023. It expects to increase abortions to 1,500 to 2,000 a month with a new model that lowers costs to patients.
“There’s an irony in what’s happened in the post-Dobbs landscape,” Foster said. “In some places, abortion care is more accessible and affordable than it was,” she said.
There have been no major legal challenges to laws that protect abortion providers from prescribing pills in states where it is restricted or banned, but abortion opponents have tried to get one of the main pills removed from the market.
Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the abortion drug, mifepristone. It ruled that anti-abortion rights doctors could not challenge the federal approval of the drug.
