Abortion has become somewhat more common in most Republican-controlled states despite bans or strict restrictions, and the legal and political battles over its future are not over.
It has now been two and a half years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, opening the door for states to implement bans.
The guidelines and their implications have been in flux since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Here’s a look at the state of affairs data:
Abortions are slightly more common today than they were before Dobbs
Repealing Roe and enforcing abortion bans have changed the way women get abortions in the United States
But there is one thing it has not achieved: the number of abortions performed has fallen.
There have been slightly more monthly abortions nationwide recently than in the months before the June 2022 ruling, although the number fell to near zero in states with bans.
“Abortion bans don’t actually prevent abortions from occurring,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health social scientist at the University of California, San Francisco.
But, she said, they are changing care.
There are major barriers for women to obtain abortions in some states – and advocates say low-income, minority and immigrant women are the least able to get abortions when they want them.
For those living in states with bans, the route to abortion is through travel or abortion pills.
Pills are becoming a larger part of the equation – and the legal issues
As the bans came into effect, abortion pills played an increasingly larger role.
They were involved in about half of all abortions before Dobbs. According to studies by the Guttmacher Institute, the figure has recently risen to two thirds.
The rise of these types of abortions, which usually involve a combination of two drugs, was already underway before the ruling.
However, pill prescriptions are now increasingly being issued via telemedicine. By summer 2024, about one in ten abortions occurred via pills prescribed to patients via telemedicine in states where abortion is banned.
As a result, the pills are now at the center of battles over abortion access.
This month, Texas sued a New York doctor for prescribing pills to a Texas woman via telemedicine. Additionally, there are moves in Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to revoke their federal approvals and treat them as “controlled hazardous substances,” and there is a push for the federal government to begin enforcing a 19th-century federal law banning the shipment of them Substances prohibited.
Abortion travel has increased
Clinics have closed or stopped abortions in states with bans.
But the network of efforts to bring women seeking abortions to places where it is legal has expanded, and trips for abortions are now common.
The Guttmacher Institute found that in 2023, more than twice as many Texas residents had an abortion in New Mexico as New Mexican residents. And just as many Texans received them in Kansas as Kansans.
Abortion funds that benefited from Rage Giving in 2022 have helped cover costs for many abortion seekers. However, some funds have had to limit their donations.
The abortion map is changing
Since Roe was overturned, the actions of legislatures and courts have continually changed where abortion is legal and under what conditions.
Here is the current status:
The ban that came into effect
ect in Florida this year was a turning point
Florida, the country’s third-largest state, began enforcing a ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy on May 1.
That immediately transformed the state from a haven for other Southerners seeking abortions to an exporter of abortion seekers.
There were around 30% fewer abortions there in May than the average for the first three months of the year. And in June it was 35% less.
Although the ban is not an isolated case, the impact is particularly immense. According to Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College, the average drive time from Florida to a facility in North Carolina that provides abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is more than nine hours.
In some cases, clinics were opened or expanded
The bans led to clinics in some states closing or no longer offering abortions.
But in some states where abortion remains legal until it is viable – generally after 21 weeks of pregnancy, although there is no set time for this – clinics have opened and expanded.
Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico are among the states with modern clinics.
In May 2022, the month before the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade repealed, there were 799 publicly identifiable abortion providers in the United States. And as of November of this year, there were 792, according to a tally by Myers, which collects data on abortion providers.
But Myers says some hospitals that have always performed abortions have started advertising them. This means that they are now one of the clinics – even if they perhaps only offer a few of them.
The lack of access to emergency abortions puts the lives of some patients at risk
How hospitals deal with pregnancy complications, particularly those that threaten women’s lives, has become a major problem since Roe was overturned.
President Joe Biden’s administration is requiring hospitals to offer abortions when necessary to prevent organ loss, bleeding or fatal infections, even in states with bans. Texas is challenging the administration’s policies, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take it up this year after the Biden administration sued Idaho.
More than 100 pregnant women sought emergency room assist and were turned away or unstable since 2022, The Associated Press found in an analysis of federal hospital investigative records.
Complaints included a woman who miscarried in the emergency room lobby bathroom in Texas after staff refused to see her and a woman who gave birth in a car after a hospital in North Carolina stopped offering an ultrasound could. The baby later died.
“It is becoming increasingly unsafe to be pregnant and seek emergency care in an emergency room,” Dara Kass, an emergency physician and former U.S. Health and Human Services official, told the AP earlier this year.
Abortion rights are popular with voters
Since Roe was overturned, there have been 18 ballot questions related to reproductive rights across the country.
Abortion rights advocates prevailed in 14 cases and lost in four cases.
In the 2024 election, they amended the constitutions in five states to add abortion rights. Such measures failed in three states: Florida, where 60% support was required; in Nebraska, where there were competing abortion ballot measures; and in South Dakota, where most national abortion rights groups supported the measure.
Data from AP VoteCast found that more than three-fifths of voters in 2024 supported legalizing abortion in all or most cases – a slight raise from 2020. The support came even as voters favored Republicans in controlling white House and both chambers of Congress supported.
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Associated Press writers Linley Sanders, Amanda Seitz and Laura Ungar contributed to this article.
