The Society for Family Planning’s WeCount project attributed the growth to telemedicine which accounted for about a fifth of all abortions by December 2023.
Between October and December 2023, an estimated 8,000 people per month were receiving medication abortions in states with bans or severe restrictions through telemedicine avenues.
In the time that the analysis was conducted, five states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Washington — had shield laws in place protecting clinicians who offered medication abortions to patients in other states.
Since then, Maine and California have enacted similar laws.
The states with the largest cumulative rise in abortions since the Dobbs decision were Illinois, Florida and California.
The report noted that while most surge states bordered states with abortion bans, states relatively distant from those with abortions bans also saw increases in abortion. WeCount attributed this to more people traveling for abortion services as well as more people living in those states getting abortions.
“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, WeCount co-chair and professor at the Ohio State University’s College of Public Health, said in a statement.
A report from the Guttmacher Institute earlier this year similarly found that the number of abortions went up in 2023, the first full calendar year following the Dobbs decision. Guttmacher found that abortions went up by 11 percent in 2023 versus 2020, the last year from which the organization had comprehensive estimates.
