More people are receiving abortion care per month in the first quarter of 2024 than before the Supreme Court struck down the national right to abortion in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, a national survey found. The increase is mostly due to the availability of medication abortion via telehealth.
#WeCount, a national abortion reporting effort that has been tracking monthly abortion rates since April 2022, said in its latest report (PDF) that medication abortions provided through telehealth are a major cause of the abortion uptick. National total monthly abortions exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the survey began in April 2022.
Women are flocking to telehealth to seek abortion care because of lower costs and the ability to receive care from home. More than 59,000 people received telehealth abortion care in the first quarter of 2024.
Telehealth consultation and the remote prescription of medications for abortions accounted for nearly 20% of all abortions in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2024, whereas only 4% of abortions occurred via telehealth in April 2022.
#WeCount tracked a massive rise in the number of telehealth abortions since July 2023. A year ago, many state shield laws went into effect, which protect providers offering abortion care across state lines if abortion is legal in their home state.
In many cases, clinicians provided telehealth abortion services to patients in states with total abortion bans, six-week bans and restrictions on telehealth abortions under the protection of shield laws.
In states with total abortion bans and six-week bans, out-of-state clinicians provided an average of over 6,700 monthly telehealth abortions from January to March 2024 under the protection of shield laws.
In states with restrictions on telehealth abortion, out-of-state providers completed nearly 2,500 monthly telehealth abortions in the first quarter of 2024 under the protection of shield laws.
Even without the additional abortion care administered through shield laws, monthly abortion numbers would still be up 3% over last year, #WeCount’s report finds.
More brick-and-mortar clinics are engaging in telehealth abortion care, #WeCount finds. In July of last year, #WeCount gained the ability to differentiate in-person and telehealth abortions provided by brick-and-mortar healthcare sites.
Telehealth medication abortions provided by brick-and-mortar clinics increased by 33% from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.
Virtual-only telehealth abortions were up by 59% in Kansas and 53% in Virginia, year over year, the report found.
#WeCount also estimates the number of abortions that would have occurred in states had statewide bans on abortion not gone into effect post-Dobbs. The group estimates that in the 14 states with near total abortion bans, about 208,040 abortions would have occurred in person in these states since the Dobbs decision.