The number of abortions in the United States again increased in 2024, women continuing to find solutions to use it despite the prohibitions and restrictions in force in many states, according to a report published on Monday.
The latest report of the WeCount project of the Society of Family Planning, which supports access to abortion, was published the day before the third anniversary of the judgment of the United States Supreme Court, which canceled the judgment Roe c. Wade And ended almost 50 years of legal abortion nationally for most of the pregnancy.
Currently, 12 states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with a few exceptions, and four apply prohibitions which come into force from the sixth week of pregnancy, often before women realize that they are pregnant.
If the total number of abortions has gradually increased during these three years, it fell to zero in certain states, while abortions by pill obtained by telemedicine have become a more common method in almost all states.
The pills are used in the majority of abortions and are also prescribed in person.
The last survey, published on Monday, identified around 1.1 million abortions nationwide last year, or nearly 95,000 per month. This figure is up compared to the 88,000 monthly from 2023 and the 80,000 monthly from April to December 2022. Wecount was launched after the cancellation of the judgment Roe c. Wadeand the figures of 2022 do not include the period from January to March, a period traditionally the most conducive to abortions.
This figure remains far below the historic peak of almost 1.6 million per year reached in the United States in the late 1990s.
The Society of Family Planning is mainly based on surveys of abortion services providers and uses estimates.
In the months preceding the Dobbs judgment, approximately one out of 20 had been practiced by telemedicine, noted Wecount. During the last three months of 2024, this figure has however increased to 1 in 4.
The highest increase compared to this period took place in mid-2023, when laws have come into force in certain states controlled by Democrats. These laws aimed to protect health professionals who use telemedicine to prescribe drugs to patients in states where abortion is prohibited or where laws restrict abortion by telemedicine.
About half of the abortions by telemedicine last year were facilitated by the protection laws, noted Wecount. The number of abortions per telemedicine has also increased in states where abortion is not prohibited.
Wecount is the only national public source of information on drugs prescribed to women in states where abortion is prohibited. An important warning specifies that the number of orders which lead to an abortion is not clearly established. Some women could change their mind, use abortion in person or try to keep drugs for subsequent use.
Wecount’s data could help explain the data from another Guttmacher Institute survey, which found a drop in the number of people going from one state to the other to abort last year.
Anti -abortion actions are focused on pills
Three states have brought legal action to try to obtain courts that they limit mifepristone orders by telemedicine, one of the two drugs usually used in combination for drug abortions.
President Donald Trump’s administration had declared a judge last month that she did not consider states as legally competent to bring this action.
The United States Supreme Court held last year that anti-abortion doctors and their organizations did not have quality to act either.
In addition, the Louisiana authorities use criminal law and Texas are trying to inflict civil sanctions on a New York doctor accused of prescribing abortive pills to women in their states. The Louisiana legislators also sent a bill to the governor aimed at restricting access to these pills more.
