Recent research suggests that the number of abortions grew in the first part of 2023 in all states where they were legal.
Data gathered from The Guttmacher Institute, a research organisation that promotes access to abortion, provides the most precise information to date on where people are looking for abortions in the U.S., more than one year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The rises were particularly notable in those states that enacted policies to protect rights to abortion, including Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, and Washington, and also states such as Kansas and New Mexico, which border says that have banned abortions.
Within New Mexico, the number of abortions between January and June was more than three times higher in comparison to the same timeframe in 2020, the year in that we at the Guttmacher Institute have comparable data. It’s a sign that people are going beyond state lines in order to terminate pregnancies, according to Isaac Maddow Zimet who is a data researcher of the Guttmacher Institute who helped conduct the study.
“The rise in a state such as New Mexico is probably primarily driven by the flow of people from neighboring states such as Texas. We’ve been told anecdotally over the years and I believe the magnitude of this shift is a good indicator,” Maddow-Zimet said.
The figures Maddow-Zimet’s team released are calculated based on monthly estimates of the abortion providers across the country. The figures don’t include self-managed abortions, which are medications that are performed outside of clinics, doctor’s office or the telehealth setting.
According to Guttmacher estimates that are based on Guttmacher estimates, in Colorado which is a state where abortion rights are protected through state law the rate of abortions increased by 89% in the initial quarter of the year, when compared with the first half of 2020.
In Illinois -where policies have been enacted to protect abortion clinics and patients traveling to get abortions in the state — abortions increased by 69 percent. About 44,000 abortions were performed in the first quarter of 2023, as compared to more than 26,000 performed in the first quarter of 2020.
“It already was kind of a bastion of access in the region before, and I think it’s become even more so,” Maddow-Zimet stated.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision following the Dobbs decision, the Alamo Women’s Clinic closed its abortion clinic in San Antonio and opened locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Carbondale, Illinois. Andrea Gallegos, the clinics executive administrator, told the media that the two locations were busy immediately. She estimated that both locations receive 400 patients a month.
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Patients who are out of state in the New Mexico location are from Texas, she stated, whereas the Illinois facility serves patients from more locations.
“We strategically decided to open in southern Illinois because of the proximity to so many states that would likely have bans,” Gallegos explained. “It’s not unusual for us to have patients from nine different states in one day because of that.”
Michele Landeau, the chief operating officer of Hope Clinic, an abortion provider located in southern Illinois She said that more than 80 percent of the patients who visit the clinic are from states that have restrictions or bans on abortion. About 15% or 20 percent of patients must travel for at least 12 hours to access the clinic, she said.
“Our volume has increased exponentially,” Landeau explained. “Unfortunately, we aren’t able to see every person that calls us.”
In the year 2020, more than 113,000 abortions were performed in the thirteen states which have enacted total abortion bans and Wisconsin where a lot of health professionals are reluctant to provide abortions due to the law of 1849 that prohibited abortions. It was nearly 12 percent of the national total in that year as per Guttmacher Institute. Guttmacher Institute.
In the initial few months of the year, only 14 abortions were recorded in Texas.
Since June — the most recent data within the Guttmacher research the ban on abortions or restrictions have gone into force in Indiana, North Carolina and South Carolina after having been delayed in the courts. The impact of those policies aren’t reflected in the study.
The Guttmacher researchers noted that they will require more information to understand how the amount of abortions has fluctuated on a nationwide scale as well as estimations of abortions that are self-managed. But, the number of abortions within the U.S. rose in 2019 and 2020, and data from the state level suggest that the trend continued through 2021.