In states with abortion restrictions, 8,000 people each month get abortion pills elsewhere

In 2023, a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 63% of abortions nationwide were being completed with medications like mifepristone and misoprostol, according to insight provided by the Guttmacher Institute previously reported by USA TODAY.

The first concrete data emerged Tuesday on the number of women who accessed abortion pills in 2023 from states with abortion bans now in place. The survey, put out by #WeCount backed by the Society of Family Planning, found that around 8,000 women a month who live in states with abortion restrictions are able to get abortion pills from states without restrictions thanks to telehealth services.

Telehealth playing larger role in abortion care than ever before

The #WeCount report found that around 86,000 abortions were conducted monthly in the U.S in 2023, up 4,000 a month since 2022. This is excluding the roughly 8,000 a month accessed under shield laws last year.

Shield laws protect doctors, nurse practitioners and midwives as they prescribe abortion pills to patients in states without access to them. The five states protected by shield laws are Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Vermont and New York, according to the report. Shield laws have not yet been challenged in court.

"Even as the total national number of abortions nationally has increased, we can't lose sight of the fact that access to in-person abortion care has virtually disappeared in states where abortion is banned,” Alison Norris, Co-Chair of #WeCount said in the report.

Telehealth plays a larger role in abortion care than ever before. At the close of 2023, there were around 17,000 medical abortions being conducted through telehealth each month, including both physical and virtual clinics, according to the report.

"Access to medication abortion through telehealth continues to play an ever-increasing role in abortion care nationwide—even as the Supreme Court weighs the fate of telehealth abortion care.” Dr. Ushma Upadhya, the other Co-Chair of #WeCount, added.

“The need for abortion care across the country demands that providers, advocates, and lawmakers continue to come together to innovate new strategies to help people access abortion care.”

#WeCount is a national abortion reporting effort that aims to measure monthly abortion utilization by state following the US 2022 Dobbs v Jackson's Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision.