The Guttmacher Institute today released the latest round of data from its Monthly Abortion Provision Study, along with a new US Abortion Provision Dashboard that allows users to interact with the Institute’s most up-to-date abortion data. The new data include state and national abortion counts from January 2023 through March 2024 and, for the first time, include findings on the state of residence of abortion patients who traveled out of state for care in 2023.
The New York Times reported on these latest findings and compared 2023 state of residency data with historical Guttmacher data on travel across state lines to illustrate the change in travel patterns from before and after the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022.
“What’s striking about this new data is how often people are traveling across multiple state lines to access abortion care,” says Isaac Maddow-Zimet, Guttmacher data scientist and Monthly Abortion Provision Study project lead. “Traveling for abortion care requires individuals to overcome huge financial and logistical barriers, and our findings show just how far people will travel to obtain the care they want and deserve. Despite the amazing resiliency of abortion patients and providers, we can’t lose sight of the fact that this is neither normal nor acceptable: A person should not have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to receive basic health care.”
Traveling for abortion care is not new to the post-Dobbs era, and the number of people traveling out of state has always been particularly high in states with abortion restrictions. Historically, however, many of the people traveling from restrictive states went to states that now have total abortion bans. For instance, in 2020, more than 800 Louisiana residents traveled to Texas for abortion care; following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, that was no longer possible. In 2023, more than 3,500 Louisianans traveled across multiple states to get care in places like Florida, Illinois and Georgia.
“There are many stories in these data, including the significant role that Florida has played in maintaining some level of abortion access in the Southeast. In 2023, patients from across the region traveled to Florida to obtain abortion care,” says Kelly Baden, vice president for public policy at Guttmacher. “However, on May 1 of this year, Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect. The state of residence data makes it clear that this policy change will be devastating not only for Floridians, but also for the thousands of others who would have traveled there after being denied care in their home states. Once again, we see that a state’s abortion policies affect thousands of people beyond that state’s borders.”
The complete data set and graphic visualizations of 2023 state of residency data are available on Guttmacher’s newly launched US Abortion Provision Dashboard. This interactive resource provides more detailed insights into the Monthly Abortion Provision Study data and makes critical evidence more accessible to advocates, researchers, journalists, policymakers and anyone aiming to use rigorous research to improve access to abortion in the United States.
About the Study
The Monthly Abortion Provision Study estimates the number of clinician-provided abortions in each US state without a total abortion ban from January 2023 through March 2024. It collects data on procedural and medication abortions provided at brick-and-mortar health facilities (such as clinics or doctor’s offices), as well as medication abortions provided via telehealth and virtual providers in the United States. Counts for all months include telehealth abortions provided under shield laws to patients in states where abortion is not banned but telehealth provision of abortion is banned. Abortions are counted as having been provided in the state in which a patient had a procedure or where pills were dispensed.
The study’s estimates are generated by a statistical model that combines data from samples of providers with historical data on the caseload of every US provider. As more data are collected each month, estimates for past months become more precise. Each estimate is expressed as an uncertainty interval quantifying our confidence that the true value falls within a particular range.
Acknowledgment
The Monthly Abortion Provision Study is supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, the Office of Research on Women’s Health, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research of the National Institutes of Health, under award number R61HD112921. The content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
About the Guttmacher Institute
The Guttmacher Institute is a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide. The Institute has a long history of tracking abortion incidence in the United States and globally. Every three years since 1974, the Guttmacher Institute has conducted the Abortion Provider Census of all known facilities providing abortion in the United States to collect information about service provision, including total number of abortions.